The House of the Red Balconies

Book excerpt: Hylas has come to the island of Tykanos to build an aqueduct. He is not interested in the island’s main attraction: the pleasure houses where polished courtesans both female and male offer tea and elegant conversation. Until he finds himself renting a room in one of the tea houses and meeting his neighbour, the courtesan Zo. Over breakfasts in Zo’s garden, the two men strike up a friendship that transforms the isolation of their lives. But Hylas’s aqueduct project is threatened by bureaucratic delays, and Zo needs to secure a rich patron to help support his failing house. Just when they have begun to hope that they have found a home together, will the world force them apart?