In the spring of 2014, I came up with the idea that much of the data I had gathered for the «Smyrna Quay» project would also be of interest to a broader audience, not just to the fans of purely historical works. So I decided to write a historical novel that would give me the opportunity to express myself more freely and not confine myself just to historical events.

Having studied thousands of old newspapers, commecial guides, maps, photos, historical works and memoirs about Smyrna, I was more than competent to present a fairly accurate picture of the last years of multicultural Smyrna and the Greco-Turkish war, which provide the background of the story. Of course, the main plot is about the hopeless love affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, highlighting the complexity of interracial relationships in a metropolis with mixed population, like pre-1922 Smyrna.

The aim of attracting a wider audience was served by the inclusion of some explicit erotic scenes, occasionally even hardcore, which nevertheless evolved in parallel with Smyrna's course, from innocence to blunders and errors, and ultimately to punishment and destruction. Anyway, while I was writing the book, my heroes managed to gain a degree of independence and relate to me their own versions of the story, which I was obliged to record, often deviating from the plot I had in mind. It was as if they had suddenly come to life, and I felt great sadness when I had to part from them when I wrote the words «THE END».