My husband and I took the Celebrity ship, the Solstice, on a cruise that took us to Istanbul, Turkey for two days and a day in Kusadasi, Turkey.  I went to the Blue Mosque that was built in Istanbul by the Moslems five hundred years earlier.  It was beautiful, deeply peaceful feeling and all the people who visited it from around the world, fell in love with it.  You didn’t have to be of one specific religion to appreciate the beauty of the architecture, the respect and humbleness of all those who set foot inside (without shoes), to feel that incredible ambiance.  I sat there with a scarf over my head thinking that if only I could take the utter love within this mosque and spread it around the world, we really could have peace on this poor war-torn planet of ours.

On that same cruise, we sailed to Greece.  This was a lifelong dream fulfilled for me.  I wanted to go to the Acropolis, Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, temple.  I got to go there and sit and admire the incredible beauty of the alabaster columns in the sunlight, knowing that where I walked, Athenians over two thousand years before, had walked.  The Greek people were welcoming, warm, playful, and in love with life.

I wanted to take these incredible experiences I had and create a global family saga. I created Dilara Culver, the mother of Tal, Matt and Alexa, her children.  She owns and runs the largest charity in the world: Delos.  The nurturing qualities of the Turks, their fierce love of family, of supporting and being responsible toward the community, were all a part of her.  And because she came from one of the wealthiest family’s on the planet, she wanted to give back to those who had little or nothing.  Delos charities were born.

I took all the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the scents, the textures and colors of these two countries and decided that I wanted to build a family saga out of them.  Turkey sits between two huge continents….Europe and Asia.  It is a cosmopolitan, forward-looking country.  Dilara Badem fell in love with handsome USAF Captain Robert Culver.  When they married, they brought three continents together between them with their love.  And from that love came three children, Tal, Matt and Alexa.  They were fifty percent American, forty percent Turkish and ten percent Greek.  They mirrored our world that we live in today.

To find out more about them?  Just go here: About the Delos Series

I had to make family trees of the far-flung family.  And I had to go back several generations especially in the Turkish family, which was a lot of fun.

There is the American tree, the Turkish tree and finally, the Greece tree: The American Family Tree

You can also download Dilara Badem-Culver’s Greek and Turkish family tree here: Greek and Turkish Family Tree

Nowhere to Hide

Releases October 13th!

Lia Cassidy left the Army scarred physically and emotionally after a vicious attack by two fellow soldiers. She turns to helping others, working at a Delos Home School Charity in Costa Rica that aids abused women and children. But when the deadly drug lord, La Arana, attacks the school, Lia finds herself on the run for her life. The only person she can trust is the ex-SEAL sent to protect her.

Cav Jordan is strong, honorable and gorgeous…and intrigued by Lia. He knows she has suffered pain in her past, and he is determined to break through her barriers and earn her trust. But as Cav slowly chips away at the walls Lia has built, ghosts from her past threaten to destroy their fragile relationship.