The Amalgam

"A tenderly told story of a complex inheritance, displacement, and secrets." Nadia Hashimi, internationally bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell Athens, 1984. All Meta wants is to escape her tyrannical father and the future he demands of her. But when her dying grandmother, Metaxia, presses a mysterious heirloom into her hands-begging her to return it to the lost Greek village in Asia Minor from which she was violently expelled during World War I-Meta makes a promise she doesn't fully understand. Fleeing to America in a desperate bid for freedom, Meta must survive on her own after her father cuts her off-penniless, hungry, and clinging to her dream of becoming an artist. Yet the heirloom wrapped in her grandmother's handkerchief refuses to be forgotten. Years later, a shattering moment forces Meta to confront the life she has built-and the history she has tried to outrun. Her journey to Turkey becomes a pilgrimage across continents and across time, echoing Metaxia's own flight from violence decades earlier. As their parallel stories converge, Meta must finally face the truth: can we ever return to the places that made us-or only to the person we were meant to become? Sweeping, intimate, and deeply human, The Amalgam is the tale of two women bound by survival, exile, and the unbreakable pull of home.