This is the story of a fifty-year-old piano tuner who decides to take Greek language lessons with a friend, just for fun. Unexpectedly, she contracts the ancient illness known as “Eros,” which is an unwelcome passion for someone who is not suitable for you --- i.e. the young graduate student who is teaching her. A trip to Greece seems to be the only possible cure.

She sets off one April morning for her two-month journey, not realizing that the real love affair for her will end up being the country itself. Over the next several years she returns to Greece four more times, during which she has a variety of intense experiences that take her deeper into the mystery of this place where she has become more than just a tourist.

Ikaria takes its place in the fine tradition of Greek travel essay books, alongside those by Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Peter Levi, Kevin Andrews, and more recently Camille Cusumano, Elizabeth Boleman-Herring, John Lucas, Alison Cadbury and John Mole.