It's been a few weeks since the last Ask Sara. I wanted to have a bit more time to focus on each reader / writer Q&A, so I've decided that they are now going to happen once a month rather than every other week.

This time I asked my Facebook friend and fellow Greek Villager Toni Thomas to ask me three questions and to tell us three things about herself.

Here is what Toni told us:

I woke up to a beautiful request from my friend Sara Alexi. Share 3 things about myself and ask her 3 questions about me.

I was a co-winner with Marti Marikovics in Sara's first online contest, it was a "caption this" contest and the pic was 2 little goats looking at each other! Marti and I won the contest and one month later this adorable little goat arrived at my home from Greece.

Sara asked a few of us to help her with a project called "The Greek Village Handbook" we partnered up and created a compilation of facts about people, places and important details from one of her books. I volunteered for the "Unquiet Mind" along with Juana Abbene and Shauna Brown. The result of this project was a book called "A Wander Through the Village" here is my copy. Because of this project I met a woman who has become a very great friend. Juana and I have much in common, the most important one being our love for reading Sara Alexi books. We also adore Greece and running!! <3



The picture hanging on the wall (photo above) behind the book was a gift from a young woman who came to work for me many years ago. That summer she wandered into my restaurant, she was living in a shelter, she was 22 years old, she was suffering from some health issues, and she needed a job. She worked all summer for me and most of that following winter, until she decided it was time for her to hit the road and move on. What she left behind were 2 incredible works of art that she gave to me in return for the job she was given and the opportunity to make her famous Carmel Apple Pies. I think of her often! I never saw her again! Her name was Sara!

And here is what Toni asked me about myself:

Who is your favorite character from the Greek Village Series

So who is my favourite Character?

As soon as I think of one another pops into my head. I think Stella would be the obvious answer but I have a bit of a crush on Theo; then again I would like to spend some time with Marina at the corner shop.

This is a really tricky question! Nikki was in a tough place when I wrote about her, but I wonder how she is now and I just love Yanni and Sophia.

I also love the nun, Sister Katerina who lives alone in Orino island! Can I not just list them all? I’ve not mentioned Juliet, Aaman, Michelle ... Oh, and then there’s crazy Liz and Sarah in A Handful of Pebbles.

Nope, sorry, I cannot settle on a favourite, I love them all. I also enjoy disliking Babis ‘Lawyer to the people.'

What is your favorite place in all of the places you have taken us to?

I think the most romantic place is the hill top on Orino Island where Yanni and Sophia live at one end of the ridge and Rallou lives in a small village at the other. I can picture the heat and the isolation, the rocks and the dry vegetation and being able to see the deep blue of the sea all around the island, glinting in the sun. I could sit and watch the trails of fluffy white foam the boats make as they come and go picking up and depositing their passengers.

Across the water to the north is the mainland shimmering in the heat, the colour sucked of out of the hills; to the south a vast expanse of sea all the way to unseen Crete, the horizon merging with the deep blue of the sky.

Around me the cicadas rasp away, their coarse love songs only broken by the clanking and clanging of the goat bells as the herds feed off the wild gorse, the little white undersides of their tails giving their positions away.

Yes, I think this might be my favourite spot.

Would you consider meeting all of us for a retreat to Greece so we could meet you in person, listen to you do a reading of your work, and maybe do a writing workshop with those of us who adore you and your work?

I am actually quite a shy person when the focus turns on me but I would love, love, love to hold a Greek Village Retreat in Greece to talk about the Village and the Characters.

It would be such fun to brainstorm a plot together. But equally I would also love to hear what the individual of the group have been writing about, work through their plotting issues, as you say, run a writing workshop.

This is an idea I have been toying with for a while, the only thing that has stopped me arranging it is finding the time that is needed to organise such an undertaking.

Thank you so much to Toni for this month's Ask Sara!

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