$26.49
Author: Silvers Laury
Number Of Pages: 304
Details: Review
Reviews and Praise for THE LOVER”
“Remarkable” — Richard Marcus, Blogcritics
“Completely engrossing and richly atmospheric. Tenth century Baghdad comes alive through the eyes of a dazzling cast of characters.” — Ausma Zehanat Khan, acclaimed author of The Getty-Khattak Mysteries
A Discovered Diamond: The Lover is a story of mystics and mysteries in 10th-century Baghdad, a setting so well invoked you can feel dust under your sandaled feet, taste the coolness of water and the earthiness of lentils, feel the heat of the sun reflecting off walls and the breeze on rooftops at night. The death of a child – a servant who falls to his death from the rooftop where he is sleeping – is the prosaic mystery to be solved. Why should the police do anything but a cursory investigation over his death? He was known to sleepwalk, and who in a respected imam’s household would kill a child? But beyond this mystery is another story, that of brother and sister Zaytuna and Tein. Children of a celebrated Sufi mystic, raised within and often by other Sufi adherents, they both become embroiled in the circumstances of the child’s death in different ways: Zaytuna through the network of servants and labourers she is part of; Tein through his appointment to the Baghdad police. –Marian Thorpe
An exceptionally well-crafted story that weaves a tale of startling complexity.”—John Sanders, Glenn and Tyler Mysteries
“And yet it is The Lover’s first-rate storytelling and characters that propel it to enormity. At heart, the novel is a murder mystery involving the death of a young, male servant, where a police investigator and the local daughter and son of a famed female ecstatic converge and unwind the sordid circumstances surrounding the boy’s death. Upon the seeming simplicity of this narrative arc Silvers builds the rich inner world of her principle personas. They drive the story with their respective refusals to accept injustice, and with their struggles to find a piety that makes sense to them.” —Adam Gaiser, Muslim World, 2019
“Unlike anything else I’ve read, this book has stayed deep in my heart long after I finished reading. I find myself returning to Zaytuna’s experiences over and over again as I ponder my own life story. Whatever your own story, whatever life has thrown at you, this book is for you.”—Sarah Shah, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Islamic Studies, University of Toronto
“Dr. Laury Silvers debut novel transports the reader to 10th century Baghdad, during the city’s golden age when it was one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world. Her exquisite descriptions of the city and erudite knowledge of its historical denizens render real the people of Baghdad to the reader, whether pious mystics, cynical wine merchants, or frontier soldiers turned detectives. It’s a great mystery and its faithful portrayal of Baghdad makes it a compelling read for anyone interested in the history of Islam and the Medieval Middle East.”
—Sherwan Hindreen Ali, a native Baghdadi and graduate student in the Institute for Islamic Studies, McGill University
“This is a novel that will both entertain readers and educate them about a wide range of subjects relating to intellectual, social and cultural history of the period in which it is set. It successfully weaves together fiction with meticulous historical research.”
—Michael Mumisa, Cambridge Special Livingstone Scholar
“With an informed, historical view of the spiritual atmosphere in medieval Baghdad, Laury Silvers has written an exciting mystery in lucid, gripping prose, bringing to life complex individuals of the past, moral agents both layered and conflicted.”
—Cyrus Ali Zargar, Al-Ghazali Distinguished Professor, UCF and Author of The Polished Mirror
“…It is The Lover’s first-rate storytelling and characters that propel it to enormity. At heart, the novel is a murder mystery involving the death of a young, male servant, where a police investigator and the local daughter and son of a
Release Date: 29-05-2019
Package Dimensions: 14x230x420
