Sockdolager: The Bonds of Sorrow

by Joseph Daniels

This is the remarkable story of Florin Ceku, an ordinary Albanian boy growing up amid the rising ethnic tensions between the Albanians and Serbians who controlled Kosovo in the late 1990’s. He and his best friend Isak are trapped inside Kosovo when the war erupts. With NATO bombs falling over Belgrade, the Serbians go on a killing rampage, ethnically cleansing Kosovo of all Albanians. Florin and Isak are caught in the middle and flee from the pursuing Serbian paramilitary that seek to torture and kill them.

Torn from his homeland and separated from his family, possessions, and everything he has ever known, Florin finds himself living on the other side of the world with an estranged cousin he has never met, who is barely equipped to take care of himself, let alone a 12 year old boy. In a country he doesn’t understand, struggling with a language he doesn’t speak, Florin is left alone to pick up the pieces of his life. He blames himself for the unspeakable things that happened to him, his family, and his people.

For his 12th birthday, Isak gave him a gold necklace. Florin owes it to himself and his family to live up to the word SOCKDOLAGER inscribed on it.

507 pages, Paperback

Published June 21, 2017