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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: It is 1993 and Raf Frataleon, at the pinnacle of his career, is ready to retire as CEO of the family business, Frataleon, Inc., which his father had started right after the end of WWII. After the onset of his father's terminal illness, in 1975, he unwearyingly gives up his right to live a normal life, as other men do. Gullibly and naively he spends the better part of his adult life developing the business bringing it from a moderate aircraft after parts manufacturing company into the largest, most prestigious, family owned company of its kind in the world. Coincidental to his decision to retire comes the news of his mother's impending death from a near life long illness. The tragic loss of his father three years before had left his mother as the sole owner of Frataleon, Inc. But that fact had never worried Raf. There had always been a spoken understanding between he and his parents that the fruits of his labor would always be his. After her death, every thing he had preserved and built upon would automatically be his. Unknown to him however, his much younger sister Nicole disagrees with that arrangement. What follows is her plot to disembowel her brother's inheritance and claim it as her own. How is he to save himself from a fate he could never have imagined could have happened? Can he come out of his misfortune intact? He finds that his strength to financially survive his unexpected reversal of fortunes comes from unexpected sources. Throughout the five E-Novels, we follow Raf as he moves from his earliest childhood, into his traumatic years growing up and on through the trials and tribulations of his adult life. We watch as he prospers and approaches his mid-life. From that perspective, we understand the forces that, unknown to him, propel him, step by step, into his final situation.

eBook Publisher: 4 Points Press Publishing Company/4 Points Press Publishing Company, Published: 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2003

Available eBook Formats [Secure Microsoft Reader - What's this?]: SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT (281 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More.
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 1591180015

"The Oedipus Syndrome is an ambitious series of novels from first time fiction writer Maria Giusto. The novel explores the binds of loyalty, whether for good or for bad, that tie a family together. In her first two novels of the Oedipus Series, Blind Intentions and Betrayed Innocence, the author introduces us to Raf Frataleon, who deftly presents us with the dynamics of his family and what he thinks his extreme loyalty to them might have cost him. It is rare that an author digs as deeply into a man's psyche as this author does almost tearing the main character apart leaving him to put himself back together again. Raf takes us with him on a journey of his life hardly traveled by men of lesser courage and fortitude than he possesses. He privies us to every facet of his life and lets us share in every part of his emotions. With the great intensity of a comic storyteller, you will laugh when he laughs. With the great sorrow of a holy man observing the decline of his followers, you will cry when he cries. With the openness of a bon vivant you will love as he loves, deeply, passionately and obsessively. Benevolent to a fault, you would yet pale at the depth of his hatred when he is crossed. Profound and enormous in its scope, his anger could bring him and his to destruction. Written with the intensity of his need to expose his inner self, the first novel, Blind Intentions let's Raf take a second look at his present life. The second novel, Betrayed Innocence, is in contrast to the first. In a flashback, we travel with him into his childhood where we share, in another time and another place, the events that write the foundation of his life-script. The first novels will keep you spellbound and you will want to meet Raf again in the upcoming third novel, a continuation of his ambitions and setbacks that dictate his life."--Publisher's Review

Raf parked his rented, gray Mercedes Sedan in the half-full parking lot of the railway station at the outskirts of Tasch, Switzerland, a sprawling town located at the foot of the railway that serviced visitors back and forth, up the mountain, to Zermatt Village. Despite the dangerous conditions of the icy road between Geneva and Tasch and the constantly falling snow, he had made good time through the mountains, he thought. He had grown used to those kinds of traveling conditions in the Alps, at this time of the year, the height of the ski season. For the past thirteen years, every year, sometimes twice a year, since he was eighteen, he had been making this trip and most times the drive, even with better road conditions, had taken him longer. It was ten o'clock, Saturday night, March eighth, already what some would consider technically the end of the ski season, at least for this year, 1975. Considering the high Alps, the seasonal snowfall that year had so far been sparse and he had heard that the resort, with the help of huge tractor machines, had had to manufacture snow every night to keep the slopes groomed and skiable for the next day.

After his long, lonely, non-stop, four-hour drive from the Geneva Airport, he was exhausted. Sitting back in the driver's seat, extending his legs out under the dash, stretching his arms up with the palms of his hands resting on the padded ceiling, he let out a low whoop and a soft holler rather than a long, loud sigh of relief. After allowing himself a five-minute rest, he stepped out of the car, into the still, winter night air, his boots crushing into the thin layer of dry, hard, pointed crusts of snow that had been left there by that day's storm and other parking cars. The crunching noise that permeated the air gave him a feeling of exhilaration. His hood draped over the back of his white lambs-wool lined, black leather parka leaving his full auburn waves to set hard atop his head. He had not yet turned gray, he was only thirty years old, but lately passing for twenty-eight, when he could get away with it. Any stray strands of gray hair, which showed the courage to surface, were plucked out immediately and religiously. His ears, cheeks and nose turned red from the biting cold, his eyes and nose watered mercilessly and his jacket crackled, squeaked and strained from the frosty air every time he moved. He tucked his black, fur-lined, gloved hands into the back pockets of his black, heavy wool trousers and sucked in the crisp fresh air of the night; it stung his lungs. They expanded pushing his chest out, arching his back and elongating his body another two inches. Between his heavily soled boots and his stretched out body, he appeared to be six feet tall instead of his actual height of five foot ten. To limber up, he tramped two laps around the big car comfortably, not huffing but watching his expelled air go up in puffs of smoke. He warmed up quickly enough to unlock his leg and arm cramps and to build up enough energy and strength to unload his luggage. The cramping of his extremities had set in and had plagued him the last half of the trip, where the mountain curves were steeper and deeper than the first half. To compensate for the turns and twists, his maneuvering of the car had put a strain on them and his back.

As soon as I get to the Perren Haus, Helmut's strong hands will fix me up, he assured himself as he headed for the boot of the auto to unload his luggage. A good massage, in the steam room, will also go a long way to straightening me out so that I can get in a decent day's skiing tomorrow.