I'm very excited to learn more about Zoe Ferraris' sequel to FINDING NOUF, her award-winning literary mystery set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her next book is CITY OF VEILS. Nice title! It will take the reader from Jeddah deep into the Empty Quarter. Her website is gorgeous, (click on my entry title to visit it). I'm looking forward to her book tour, hoping she'll come through Boston.
This week I was invited to a book group discussion of FINDING NOUF. It was interesting to hear reactions to the characters and plot twists; the things the readers 'bought' or didn't 'buy' about the plot. What's fun about a mystery set in the Kingdom is that everyone seems to be fascinated with how social rules might allow or restrict the progression of the plot. While each person had his or her favorite scene, the scene in the coat market was in everyone's top three. One reader believed the book was more properly categorized as a tragedy. As for me, I loved the humor that lurks just under the surface in FINDING NOUF. It reminds me of the laughs we had living there. Unusual things happen in Jeddah, and eccentric people live there. In fact, I think Jeddans are proud of the unusual characters in their midst. And they have a great sense of humor, which of course makes them quite endearing.
Murder mysteries aren't supposed to be all fun, and certainly Zoe's books deal with serious social issues. However, they are full of quirky cultural twists that make us rethink our assumptions about how Arabs and Muslims live.
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