’An intelligent, complex story of interfaith marriage. . . . That balances nail-biting tension with lyrical intent.’ GuardianMore than two decades after moving to Saudi Arabia from America and marrying Abdullah Baylani, Rosalie learns that her husband has married a second wife. The discovery plunges the powerful family into chaos as Rosalie grapples with leaving Saudi Arabia, her life and her family behind.Abdullah and Rosalie’s consuming personal entanglements also blind them to the crisis approaching their sixteen-year-old son Faisal, whose deepening resentment towards their lifestyle has led to his involvement with a controversial sheikh. When Faisal makes a choice that could destroy everything his family holds dear, all must confront difficult truths as they fight to preserve what remains of their love.
KEIJA PARSSINEN
Keija Parssinen is the author of the novel "The Ruins of Us," which was published in the US (HarperCollins), UK (Faber& Faber), Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Italy (Newton Compton Editori) and around the Middle East. The novel earned a Michener-Copernicus award, was long-listed for the Chautauqua Prize, was chosen as Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler, and was selected as a Best Book of the Middle East Region 2013 by Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper. In fall 2019, it was published in Arabic by the Syrian Ministry of Culture. Her second novel, "The Unraveling of Mercy Louis," won an Alex Award from the American Library Association, was chosen as Book of the Month by Emily St. John Mandel, and was selected as a Best Book of the Year by the Kansas City Star, Lone Star Literary Life, Missouri Life and Vox Magazine.
Her short fiction, essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Review of Books Daily, Gulf Coast, The Southern Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, the Lonely Planet travel-writing anthologies, World Literature Today, Slate, The Arkansas International, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Slice Magazine, Salon, Five Chapters, New Delta Review, Marie Claire, Off Assignment and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, Playa Summer Lake, the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and the Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow, where she was a My Time Fellow. Keija was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for twelve years before her family moved to Austin, Texas.
