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Effie Kammenou is a believer that it is never too late to chase your dreams, follow your heart or change your career. She is proof of that. At one time, long ago, she'd thought that, by her age, she'd have had an Oscar in her hand after a successful career as an actor. Instead, she worked in the optical field for 40 years and is the proud mother of two accomplished young women.
Her debut novel, Evanthia’s Gift, is a women’s fiction multigenerational love story and family saga, influenced by her Greek heritage, and the many real life accounts that have been passed down. She continues to pick her father’s brain for stories of his family’s life in Lesvos, Greece, and their journey to America. Her interview with him was published in a nationally circulated magazine.
Evanthia’s Gift: Book One in The Gift Saga was a 2016 Readers Favorite Awards finalist.
Waiting for Aegina: Book Two in The Gift Saga is Kammenou’s latest release.
Effie is a first generation Greek-American who lives on Long Island with her husband and two daughters. When she’s not writing, or posting recipes on her food blog, cheffieskitchen.wordpress.com, you can find her cooking for her family and friends.
As an avid cook and baker, a skill she learned from her Athenian mother, Effie incorporated traditional Greek family recipes throughout the books.
For updates on the release of Book Three in the series follow Effie on Twitter @EffieKammenou
Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite
Waiting for Aegina: Book Two in the Gift Saga by Effie Kammenou is a well-plotted, character-driven story that explores the thrills and challenges of friendship, a friendship that grows through space and time. Readers are introduced to the five women known as the “Honey Hill Girls,” a group of girls who became friends from childhood and have remained inseparable. After thirty years, they still share the bond of friendship, even though they live very separate lives. Told from the perspective of Sophia, one of the girls, the reader explores the power of friendship, following the lives of these women as they grow into adults, understanding what binds them together, and what loyalty really means.
The characters are well-developed — Sophia, Demi, Amy, Mindy and Donna — and readers will love to see each of them in their uniqueness, which comes across clearly in the narrative. Waiting for Aegina is a beautifully paced story that shows readers the role our childhood dreams and fantasies play in our lives. Apart from the beauty of friendship, wonderfully woven into the fabric of the story, readers follow characters who are real, who face challenges, experience heartaches, and keep secrets. Effie Kammenou’s writing is beautiful and it feels like music to the ears. The setting is powerful and I loved the colorful descriptions, the images that come across vividly in the writing, and the natural-sounding dialogues. Readers will enjoy the emotional and psychological depth of the story. This is a masterfully accomplished story that plunges readers into the world of women to explore what is precious in their hearts; it will arouse the finest of emotions in readers. A very entertaining read.
