Twelve year old Fatou travels from West Africa to America thinking she’s furthering her education. Yet, she arrives in New York City greeted by a man three times her age-someone from her village who paid dowry to be her husband. Suffering through pedophiles, deplorably cruel living conditions, and slave life job eventual pushes over the edge. Fatou refuses to be a victim and exerts control of her life by becoming part of Harlem’s fast money scene. This fast paced novel examines what happens when the bonds of family and tradition fall apart. It also shows how a strong and fearless woman can hold her own surrounded by shady men in the dangerous drug game.

When fifteen-year old Ejii witnesses her father’s beheading, her world shatters. In an era of mind-blowing technology and tantalizing magic, she embarks on a mystical journey to track down her father’s killer. With a newfound friend by her side, Ejii comes face-to-face with an earth turned inside out — and with her own magical powers. But she soon discovers that her travels across the sands of the Sahara have a greater purpose. Her people need to be protected from a force seeking to annihilate them. And Ejii may be just the hero to do it.

Lady Anna Winterbourne, an English widow, arrives in British-occupied Cairo in 1900. Fascinated by Egyptian culture, Anna bridles at the prejudices and parochial attitudes of the colonial community and follows her sense of curiosity to places few Europeans venture. During one disastrous secret outing, she meets and falls in love with Sharif Basha-al-Baroudi, a fierce Arab nationalist. He in turn falls in love with her, and against their better judgment, they marry. In a world where politics and personal relationships are inextricably intertwined, the choices Anna and Sharif make have profound repercussions not only in their own lives but in the lives of their descendants.

Isabel Parkman, Anna’s great-granddaughter, is a young American divorcée irresistibly drawn to Omar-al-Ghamrawi, a renowned Egyptian musician living in New York. Hoping to find keys to understanding him, Isabel travels to Omar’s homeland, taking with her an old truck full of papers she inherited from Anna. In Cairo, Isabel and Omar’s sister, Amal, unwrap Anna’s treasures and discover an unsuspected blood link between their families: Amid Anna’s diaries and letters and newspapers crackling with age is a notebook written in Amal’s grandmother’s hand recounting the story of her brother, Sharif, and the Englishwoman he loved. As Anna’s experiences during the first decades of the century and Isabel’s contemporary quest unfold in counterpoint, the politics that divide two cultures and the passions that bring lovers together resound across time and space.

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