I enjoyed this novel set in 1995 Jordan about a 30-something woman traveling with her father to visit his family in Amman, Jordan. Amani is a professor and poet who has been at loose ends since her divorce. When her father, Gabe, is invited to go to Jordan for King Hussein's 60th birthday, he's reluctant, but she persuades him to go. Amani has found scraps of a letter that Gabe's Palestinian refugee mother left in a book for him, she's intrigued by what seems to be a mystery of a missing person; clues about a castle and cemetery are all she has to go on to find him. Once in Jordan, Amani and her father are caught up in their extended family, including Gabe's two brothers and Amani's cousin Omar, who squires Amani around Jordan trying to find the castle and cemetery from the letter. Eventually they track down the missing boy, now a man in his 60s, but they still don't have all the pieces of his story. Told from alternating viewpoints of both Amani and her uncle Hafez, Amani learns what happened in the past and, with her father and Omar, rights the wrongs committed so many years ago. In addition to family, Amani meets a handsome fencing instructor, and a romance slowly develops between the two, although this plot line takes a definite back seat to the family drama and historical setting. Like Amani, author Diana Abu-Jaber is of Palestinian, Jordanian, and American descent. She has written five novels, two memoirs, and a YA novel, many of which reflect themes about Arab-American culture.
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