Meetings with Sylvia Ionnescu

A decade of association begins in a provincial Russian town between a university scholar and a diplomat's daughter. Over numerous years, their innocent beginning evolves into a mix of intrigue and devotion that would find fulfillment in a later time. A prestigious Leningrad professorship then separates the couple for a decade until they reunite in a sumptuous Paris setting. There she's a beautiful young woman who works in her father's office at the Russian embassy. She begins to draw her former tutor's affection, putting him under a spell of love and desire. Later, the darker actions of another one draw the interest of the Soviet government and put a new urgency in their relationship. Mysterious crimes gradually become apparent and force the young couple on a fateful train journey to Moscow. A remote country home offers temporary refuge, but eventually they realize their only hope is to abandon that charming house and seek a new life beyond Soviet borders. A sensual story that illuminates a couple's affections to deeper significance over pure desire, Meetings with Sylvia Ionnescu elevates the love story to a new spirituality. Such impassioned themes find fulfillment in Paris where moonlight immerses two lovers and ethereally illuminates their intimacies. In wonderfully personable language, a couple's physical devotion repeatedly consummates in a lovely room of antiques and art. Nevertheless, such sumptuous fidelity cannot offer true deliverance as the story moves beyond lust and draws mercilessly to a memorable conclusion. Meetings with Sylvia Ionnescu is the second novel of author Joseph Vitale. His first book, Rywcia Grinberg, was published in 2012 and details one woman's deliverance from the Holocaust. He lives in suburban Chicago.