In Your Hands
Inês Pedrosa
Amazon Publishing
Told in three parts, In Your Hands begins in Portugal in 1935. Wealthy socialite Jenny falls in love with businessman Antonio, who is already in love with bisexual Pedro. Portugal is in the grip of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar’s authoritarian regime. Homosexuality is frowned upon and Jenny, Antonio and Pedro enter into a polyamorous marriage for the sake of appearances. Pedro has a daughter, Camila, outside of the marriage and Jenny brings the girl up as her own child.
Thirty years later, Camila has grown into an ardent feminist, active in the tumultuous politics of the sixties. She becomes a photographer and travels to Mozambique to cover the rebellion against Portuguese colonial rule, risking life and limb to expose the truth of the conflict. There she meets Xavier, a freedom fighter, by whom Camila has a child, Natalia. Natalia in turn grows up and becomes an architect in her mother’s home city of Lisbon. She is just as politically active as her mother. Together Camila and Natalia begin to uncover the mysteries and memories of their family’s and Portugal’s past and try to unravel the secrets that hold them together.
. . . in the fine tradition of European literature.
In Your Hands is another work in the fine tradition of European literature. Told from a definite feminist perspective it focuses on the inner feelings of its principal characters, each a finely drawn and vital woman as they navigate the turbulent times of twentieth century Portugal.
