From the Expat Harem blog: We were invited to give a presentation at the Marina Yacht Club for the 7th Annual Ladies’ Lunch, organized by and for the local expat population. The area has about 5,000 foreigners in residence.

Despite heavy thunderstorms early that morning, 120 women streamed into the event as rain and clouds gave way to sunshine. During the Buck Finns cocktail hour on the veranda, we signed books until they sold out.

We were thrilled to meet so many of Bodrum’s energetic and enterprising foreign women.

Among them were event organizers Jane Baxter, Christine Davies, Leslie Joy Rhoades, and Priscilla Windsor Brown, whose voluminous rolodexes played a part in the inception of this annual event; Dina Street of Zephyria Yachting; chef Angie Mitchell, whose book Secrets Of The Turkish Kitchen has been known to save cross-cultural marriages; Victoria Boz, an adventurous New Zealander; translator Antonella Culasso who claims to be “the only Italian in Bodrum!”; then there was fiesty Lucy Nazim, a Turkish Cypriot/British repat, who is following a path in neuro-linguistic programming; Duygu Nayir, the owner of seafront cafe Kırmızı; German yoga instructor and writer Monika Munzinger; one of the four Gillians present was inspired to begin writing the book she knows she has in her.