The Island of No Return: The Cordoban Exiles' Chronicle (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9783950626148)

Córdoba, 827. When the rebellion of the al-Rabad quarter is crushed, thousands of Andalusians are given a single choice: exile or death. Among them is Yusuf, a bookseller's son who has never held a sword, and Lamia, the potter's daughter he loves.

They sail east into a sea that owes them nothing.

Led by the implacable Abu Hafs, the exiles wander from the coast of Africa to the harbours of Egypt, until they reach an island the Byzantines have left half-guarded - Crete. There, on a fortified rock above a trench, they raise a city: al-Khandaq, Chandax - the place that will outlive them all.

The story of a people who lost one homeland and built another on the bones of it: conquest and grief, the first child born on Cretan soil, and a chronicle written so that none of it would be forgotten.

The origin of The Secrets of Crete - where the whole cycle begins.