FARIDA

Farida and Aujene know their station in life. Born in Tul Ghosn, a small village deep in the heart of Lebanon's North, they are raised on the presumption that they will marry, bear children and eventually die in their tiny village, which no-one ever leaves. At the behest of their father, they farm the land with the locals, are denied an education and not given many choices in life.

But when Farida is kidnapped, the village is plunged into turmoil as a series of events leads one girl down a path of horror and another on the road to sacrifice. Soon, the curse of an old murder is revisited as the book weaves through a tapestry of age old traditions and long held beliefs.

While Aujene laments the loss of her beloved sister and best friend, her father conspires to sell her into servitude with a family in the city, while her mother clings to her sanity as she scours the streets barefoot in search of her daughter.

When Aujene eventually succumbs to an arranged marriage and moves to Australia, she believes things couldn't get any worse, but she moves from one horrifying ordeal to another as she struggles to fit into a world in which she no longer belongs.