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Reading Group Questions
1.) Has reading Last Call, Cairo made you want to travel to Egypt and sail up the Nile? What ancient Egyptian site would you like to see the most?
2.) What do you think it is about Egypt that has intrigued and captivated travelers for centuries?
3.) Do you think Alexandra should have gone against her father's wishes and run off with Alexander when he asked her to? Break the heart of a dying man or the man she truly loved?
4.) The fact that Alexandra and Alexander were able to find each other again after all those years apart and with Alexander surviving the horrors of the Great War, do you think it was a case of pure kismet or Alexandra's father looking out for his daughter from the other side? Putting to right the mistakes of the past?
5.) Were you surprised to learn that in the golden age of Egyptology it was quite easy to be an "amateur" archaeologist and as the saying goes, "start digging?" That is, provided you had the financial backing of a wealthy benefactor like Howard Carter had with the 5th Earl of Carnarvon when he made the discovery of a lifetime with the 'Boy King's' tomb being found (King Tutankhamun).
6.) If you had suffered a heartbreaking tragedy like Alexandra had after her husband died from the scorpion bite, would you too have never returned to Egypt, even if it meant your own child never knowing fully where she came from or learning about the place that her father had loved so?
7.) Do you think Eleanor genuinely loved Egypt or would have loved any country or place that gave her a fresh start, a chance to reinvent herself, become someone other than the girl from the slums of East London?
8.) Did you have a sense that Eleanor and Antony's love affair would never be able to be more than a "wartime romance?" Do you think his death is the reason why Eleni showed up on her doorstep when she was at her lowest point emotionally?
9.) If you were Eleanor, would you have taken Eleni in and treated her like she was your own child? Or would you have turned her over to the authorities?
10.) Do you think Eleni's father was right to permanently sever contact with Eleanor after he came for his daughter?
11.) Were you shocked to learn about what had happened to the Greek Jews during the Holocaust? Do you think this is a period of history not many people are aware of, especially since when one thinks of the Holocaust and its victims, they don't usually think of Greece?
12.) As you were reading Part III, did you initially think that Eleni was Jimmy's grandmother, especially after discovering that she too was a Greek Jew who had fled to Egypt during the war? Were you disappointed to learn she wasn't?
13.) Do you think the characters of Lux, Eleanor, and Jimmy were brought together for a reason? That they traveled to Egypt, booked the same tour at the same time because they were meant to?
14.) Throughout Last Call, Cairo, all of the main characters seem to have their guardian angels watching out for them, making sure they not only survive but in the case of Alexandra learning she was pregnant after Alexander's tragic and sudden death, so she was never truly without him, she had a living legacy with her. Do you believe all of us have our own guardian angels whose "metaphorical glass is broken in the case of an emergency?"
15.) A quote by the author of Peter and Wendy (more popularly known today as Peter Pan)- "Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting"- is referenced throughout Last Call, Cairo. Do you think this is something the characters subscribe to? Is it something you will or do subscribe to?
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