In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. SUNNY, the proud proprietor, who needs an ingenious plan – and fast – to keep her caf and customers safea YAZMINA, a young pregnant woman stolen from her remote village and now abandoned on Kabul’s violent streets a CANDACE, a wealthy American who has finally left her husband for her Afghan lover, the enigmatic Wakil a ISABEL, a determined journalist with a secret that might keep her from the biggest story of her lifea and HALAJAN, the sixty-year-old den mother, whose long-hidden love affair breaks all the rules. As these five discover there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will for ever change their lives and the lives of many others.

• Everyday language; easy to understand.
• Good read, nice little book of fiction based very much on the author’s own experience.
• Characters could have been more developed. Found them to be black and white. There was political issues as well as the religious aspects told by the book, somewhat naïve.
• Customs – way of life told; the plight of women.
• Favourite character by far – the sixty year old Halajan, Afghani wise woman and mother to Shmet – the young man who changed his thinking and married the lovely Yasmina who gave birth to a girl child after her husband had been killed. At that time in Kabul it was extremely controversial! All in all a good quick read.

Read By – The Last Thursday Book Group