BKMT READING GUIDES

The Debt of Tamar: A Novel
by Nicole Dweck

Published: 2015-09-08
Hardcover : 304 pages
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USA TODAY Best seller!

Bestselling author Nicole Dweck brings to life one of history's greatest yet overlooked stories of love and resilience.

In 2002, thirty-two-year-old Selim Osman, the last descendant of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, flees Istanbul for New York. In a ...
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Introduction

USA TODAY Best seller!

Bestselling author Nicole Dweck brings to life one of history's greatest yet overlooked stories of love and resilience.

In 2002, thirty-two-year-old Selim Osman, the last descendant of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, flees Istanbul for New York. In a twist of fate he meets Hannah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and an artist striving to understand a father she barely knows. Unaware the connection they share goes back centuries, the two feel an immediate pull to one another. But as their story intertwines with that of their ancestors, the heroic but ultimately tragic decision that bound two families centuries ago ripples into the future, threatening to tear Hannah and Selim apart.

From a 16th-century harem to a seaside village in the Holy Land, from Nazi-occupied Paris to modern-day Manhattan, Nicole Dweck's The Debt of Tamar weaves a spellbinding tapestry of love, history, and fate that will enchant readers from the very first page.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1
1544
PORTUGAL
José observed his aunt Dona Antonia, an aging aristocrat who’d taken him in as her own. Sitting across from him at the center of a long bronze table, Dona Antonia Mendez held her chin slightly raised over the stiff fabric of her modest ruff. A smattering of fine lines stemmed outward from the corners of her bright eyes, and her oval face, still pleasant in her age, was framed by a dangling cluster of sapphire and pearl drop earrings. She had raised him alongside her daughter Reyna since infancy. In his twenty years of life, she was the only mother he’d ever known. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. How did you feel when José sent Tamar away? Did you understand his decision? Why or why not? What do you think Tamar’s life was like in Tiberias and beyond?

2. Discuss the similarities and differences between Dona Antonia and Reyna. In what way does Dona Antonia shape Reyna as she becomes an adult and mother herself? Who do you imagine Tamar grew up to be like?

3. Selim Osman and Edward Rumie both struggle to come to terms with past sins and lost brothers. How are their struggles similar, and in what ways are they unique? Do either of them ever find the redemption they are seeking? Why or why not?

4. Discuss the relationship that Selim and Hannah share. Is their bond romantic or perhaps, something more?

5. Do you feel satisfied that The Debt was repaid, or might there be other ways in which it lingers on?

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