The Red Silk Robe: A Love Story

by Julia Cynthia Kent

You will laugh and cry throughout this TRUE international love story - The Red Silk Robe is full of devotion, intrigue, adventure and suspense. From Bristol to Beirut....The Red Silk Robe encompasses love, death, escape, survival and illegal entry into the US with two small children, without friends, family or funds...A survival story of love and strength.. The Red Silk Robe is a true story of a young English girl from Bristol, left without a family, who was determined to live life to the full and experience the world. You will follow her dream of being in show business, her travels, and her chance meeting with a handsome Lebanese 22 year-old in Beirut, Lebanon, which turned into a ‘LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT’ encounter and marriage.... …leading to her first dramatic escape from Beirut after betrayal by her Moslem inlaws... her subsequent bare survival in Bristol with her two babies - broke, alone and vulnerable... and her tragic near-death experience... …then following her return to Beirut to survive and the glorious times for ten years... her second escape from war torn Beirut, amid tanks and riots… …her arrival in the USA with her two young sons, illegal and broke again - her struggle to survive, travelling from State to State settling up in Dallas, Texas for twenty years... …finally retiring in the beautiful Riviera Maya. Julia says, ‘I do hope you enjoy The Red Silk Robe, it was MY LIFE; I needed to write it before I perhaps began to forget…’ ‘It could have been a dream, but when I look at my late husband’s picture on the wall and the photo of my two sons and grandchildren in my home in beautiful Mexico, I know it was not; it really happened.’ Julia dedicates this book to her two sons, Darren and Tarek and to the father they never knew.

196 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2011

Reviews

[David Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Red Silk Robe chronicles the true story of Julia Cynthia Kent. From an uninspiring and often traumatic early life in England, the 17-year-old Julie (as she was then known) escapes to an exciting life as a singer - and sometimes stripper - with an entertainment show traveling around Europe around 1960. Taking a break from the tour, she finds herself on a beach in Beirut, where she meets a dashing young Lebanese man. In short order, she is married, pregnant, and widowed in Lebanon.

The book tracks her difficult - often adversarial - relationship with her Muslim in-laws and her struggle to raise two young boys in a land with strict religious, political, and marital rules. A place where an Englishwoman is forever considered foreign in a time of political upheaval.

Julia shows us how she triumphed over adversity while providing us with a valuable look into the differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures. The book will give most Americans a view that they have never seen before. I found the book incredibly interesting.

[Note that while our last names are the same, there is no relation.]

[Tonya Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the life she had from her childhood to her first husnbands life was wonderfully detailed and that is what Julia wanted to get out most al and once she escaped her in-laws it was written detailing her life tillshe could find "home".
i know this author and she is a sweet, outgoing person that can make you laugh no matter what your feeling :)