Illegal by Francisco X. Stork

Illegal resumes the story of Sara and Emiliano Zapata where Disappeared left off. Sara is living at the Fort Stockton Detention Center. A mere three weeks ago she was a reporter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Now she's applying for asylum. Sara's best friend, Linda Fuentes had suddenly disappeared. Sara's investigation uncovered Linda's location and State Police were able to free her along with other women. Linda had sent Sara Leopoldo Hinojosa's cell phone. Hinojosa was responsible for enslaving Linda along with many other women, so his phone likely contains sensitive and important incriminating evidence. Because of this, Hinojosa set out to kill Sara and her family. Her mother fled to the interior of Mexico to live with her sister, while Sara and her brother Emiliano crossed illegally into the United States - with Hinojosa's phone. 

In the desert they were attacked by two of Hinojosa's men. One fled while the other was seriously wounded. While Emiliano stayed with the injured man, Sara went to get help. She encountered Sandy Morgan, a park ranger whose father Wes Morgan is an attorney.  Under Wes Morgan's guidance, it was decided that Sara would apply for asylum at the Fort Stockton Detention Center while Emiliano with Hinojosa's phone would travel to Chicago to stay with their father.

Emiliano was taken in by rancher Gustave Larsson. He harbours resentment towards his father who abandoned their family and is conflicted about contacting  his father, especially since he finds life on the ranch with Gustave peaceful. But Emiliano's father, who is staying in a motel in Sanderson, only thirty miles away, has left three messages for him. Reluctantly, Emiliano connects with his father and arranges for him to come to Larsson's ranch to pick him up. He also contacts Yoya, the person Ernesto told him is able to open the phone. She tells Emiliano she will do some research into his situation and advises him to only use a burner phone to contact him and also to consider going to a metropolitan area for his own safety. This leads Emiliano to contact his father and arrange to travel back to Chicago with him.

Emiliano's father along with help from Gustave Larsson manage to get him through the Border Patrol checkpoint. His father is now remarried to a woman named Nancy who has a six-year-old son named Trevor. He works for Abe Gropper and has changed his name to Roberto (Bob) Gropper. Emiliano decides not to tell his father about Hinojosa's phone.

At Fort Stockton, Sara meets with Sandy Morgan who tells her that her father is appealing the decision to deny her bond. Sara learns that her father is going to pick up Emiliano that morning and she tells Sandy that when her father came to see her, he had told her that his wife and father-in-law were nervous about harbouring an illegal immigrant. Sara later learns that Wes Morgan attempted to see her but was turned away and has gone to El Paso to file a complaint with the commissioner of ICE in charge of detention facilities. Sara also learns that her brother has made it past the Border Patrol and that he likely has the phone.

In Aurora, where Bob and Nancy Gropper live, Emiliano struggles with his feelings of anger, guilt and loss of trust in his father. Through Yoya, Emiliano learns that Hinojosa was killed after he was arrested and that he was part of a Mexican-U.S. trafficking ring. Some of the women are kept in Mexico, while others are taken to the United States. As a result, Yoya believes it is Americans who are after Hinojosa's phone. It is likely the phone contains sensitive information that can identify the Americans. She believes Sara is safe for now at the detention center but advises Emiliano not to call her.

However, at Fort Stockton, Sara is taken to see Assistant Field Office Director Walter Mello who questions her as to how she got into the country and if anyone was with her. Mello's threatening questioning leaves Sara fearful. 

The next day Yoya tells Emiliano that Walter Mello requested the incident report on the attack in the desert as well as Lester's confession. Mello will now know that Sara did not cross the border alone. She is also able to learn that someone named Marko Lisica was responsible for the attack on them in the desert and knows that Emiliano has Hinojosa's phone. Lisica owns the Odessa Agricultural Cooperative, but Yoya doesn't believe he's the main player. Instead, someone above Lisica, whom she names as "Big Shot"  has more to lose if the contents of the phone are revealed. Their goal now is to determine if the phone's contents can be used by the police.

While canvassing the neighbours for work, Emiliano meets Irene Costelo who hires him to paint her house. Meanwhile in the detention center, Mello reveals to Sara that he knows she crossed the border with her brother and wants to know his location. Determined to protect Emiliano, she tells Mello he returned to Mexico and refuses to answer any more questions without her lawyer. Mello places Sara in isolation.

After several days, Emiliano receives a call from someone named Louie who tells him that Yoya has gone into hiding, escaping just before her home was raided. Louie informs Emiliano that Yoya has learned a few things from an intercepted email between Lisica and Mello. Sara's lawyer, Wes Morgan was killed during an attack that was made to look like a burglary and that his father's business card was found. Lisica has ordered Mello to work on Sara while they deal with the father in Chicago. He also tells Emiliano that Big Shot "coordinates with Mexico for the women, distributes them to ...influential men here in the U.S. He protects these men. That's why they want things done quietly, legally if possible." He advises Emiliano that if he wants to go through with keeping the phone he needs to find someone in law enforcement he can trust.

Mrs. Costelo overhears this conversation and knowing Emiliano is in some kind of trouble tells him to find an old friend of hers, Stanislaw Kaluza, a retired Chicago Police officer who can be found at St. Hyacinth Basilica in Chicago.

After her credible fear interview, Mello again attempts to coerce Sara into revealing Emiliano's whereabouts. She attempts to bluff Mello by telling him that Emiliano returned to Mexico, but Mello reveals that they now know that he is with her father. He tells her the easy way is for Emiliano to give up the phone and that she simply needs to call him. Sara agrees to do this. But what Mello, Lisica and "Big Shot" do not realize is that Sara and Emiliano are determined to do the right thing no matter the personal cost. 

Discussion

Illegal is an exciting, well-written novel that explores the illegal immigrant experience through the eyes of two young Mexicans who have stumbled upon a Mexican- U.S. human trafficking operation. Sara, a reporter and her brother Emiliano have fled to the United States after Sara is given the phone of Hinojosa, a main player in the Mexican trafficking ring. Although they haven't turned on the phone, both are certain it contains critical information that could break up the trafficking ring. With Sara in a detention center and Emiliano on the run with the phone, they must each make the difficult decision of what to do with the phone. Do they return the phone to protect themselves and their families, knowing they will be leaving the trafficked women to their fate? Or do they take the risk hoping that their actions will rescue the many Mexican women who have been enslaved and abused. The novel's storyline focuses on this conflict in a game of moves and counter-moves.

Sara, in detention, comes to a decision fairly quickly. Despite being in isolation, deprived of her attorney and emotionally and  physically abused, Sara knows she must be strong. At the beginning of her time in the detention center Sara tries to put aside her fear. "I had to reach out in the dark and borrow Linda's courage, the courage that prompted her to steal the phone from Hinojosa and send it to me. I had to remember Linda's suffering. It was up to me and now up to my brother to make sure what she went through was not in vain."

 In a letter to Emiliano that she knows he will never see, she writes,
"The one thing that is becoming clear to me is that I need to believe that my life has meaning regardless of how long it lasts. It has to have a purpose now and not only when I get out of here." Seeing the suffering of the women in the detention center has strengthened Sara's resolve to help not only them but the women who are being trafficked. She writes, "If I were cut off from the suffering and hopelessness of the other women, my soul would shrink and die." So while she agrees to phone her brother to tell him to give up the phone Sara uses the call to send Emiliano a very different message. It appears she is telling him to simply obey her as he did Brother Patricio in the mountains, but she is really telling him to do what is right, to "Do it for Linda."

For Emiliano the process is longer and more complicated. He's puzzled by Sara's words to him during his phone call when she reminds him of what he learned on the Tarahumara trip with Brother Patricio. This was a trip Emiliano, filled with anger over his father's abandonment and their family's poverty, had been forced to undertake after stealing a camera. The two-day hike was grueling, living with the Rarmuri and Emiliano finally "realized that there was no way out other than to keep going..." Brother Patricio told him he was learning endurance for hope. "Hardship creates endurance and endurance creates character and character creates hope. And hope is the conviction that what you're doing is worth doing regardless of the outcome."  Reflecting on this experience, Emiliano believes this was Sara's message. 

"I had come to Chicago so I could give the phone to Yoya's people and so they could use the information in the phone to save the women who had been enslaved by Big Shot. Wasn't that the thing that required my endurance and my hope? Wasn't that what I was being asked to do? What would my life be like if I ran away from what was being asked?"

Sara had told her brother to "Do it for Linda." This meant to fight for them, to fight "For the Lindas and the Saras and the Trevors of the world. For those who are hurt and for those who are good. Because life's not worth living as a coward. Because whatever little courage I had should be used for the benefit of others."

Sara's message helps Emiliano figure out what he needs to do and gives him the resolve to do it. He leaves his father's home, rejecting the offer his father's employer, Abe Gropper has made of ten thousand dollars if he brings the phone the next day. He flees his father's home and is helped by several people, including Stanislaw Kaluza and his daughter Sophie and his granddaughter Aniela, Detectives Jaworksi and Rogers.

Stork has populated his novel with many interesting and well-crafted characters. There is Sara Zapata, the journalist who is searching for the truth and who believes the most people have some goodness in them. This is seen many times throughout the novel when Sara tries to appeal to the good in the people who are trying to do her harm. For example, when she is taken to her credible fear interview, she appeals to Norma Galindez, her asylum officer, begging her to call her attorney, Wes Morgan. Sara made the appeal because, "I could tell in her voice that there was goodness in her." She tries to appeal to the good in Mario, her guard in isolation and asks him to check for messages for her and begs him to call Sandy Morgan which he eventually does. She even attempts to appeal to any goodness in Rosaura Martel, a guard known as La Treunta Y Cuatro.

There is Emiliano who tries to discern the right thing to do. He doesn't want to go to Chicago with his father who abandoned him, Sara and their mother for a better life in the U.S. But after talking with Yoya, he knows he has to do this to keep the phone safe. "Because all that Sara had done to save the missing girls, all that she had sacrificed, all that she was going through at the detention facility, all that could not be lost." He puts aside his feelings and does what he knows to be right. He continues to show fortitude, ingenuity and a strength of character that is in contrast to his father Bob Gropper.

Aniela, Stanislaw Kaluz's granddaughter serves as a budding love interest for Emiliano as well as a character who moves the story forward in a simple but very contrived way. Stanislaw Kaluz is the kindly grandfather figure whose help makes taking down the traffickers a real possibility. And there is Bob Gropper, Emiliano's father, who has given up almost everything including his identity to be successful.

Stork is a master storyteller who has written a novel with many interesting facets to explore. One example is the issue of forgiveness. It is Aniela who helps Emiliano begin to forgive his father. Emiliano tells her that when he was dying in the desert, he was able to forgive his father and himself "for all the stupid, selfish things I had done in Mexico." But in the real world he finds forgiveness  of his father and Mrs. Coselo's killer much more difficult. Aniela, who has also experienced abandonment by her father, tells him she has learned hatred is poison. "Hate turns you into something you're not meant to be." she advises Emiliano. She tells him that all the faults she saw in her father and in his wife she also saw in herself, "...the arrogance and the superiority and the way they used people, all that was, is, in me." Her admission causes Emiliano to consider that the same drive to succeed and to prove himself to others that his father has may also be a part of him. But Aniela explains, "The big difference,...is that I don't like those things about myself. My father and his wife take pride in them. I know what's in me and I try not to act accordingly." 

Besides the issues of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and the treatment of illegal immigrants in U.S. detention centers, Stork also weaves an element of faith and prayer into his story, inviting readers to consider the power of prayer in our lives. The conclusion, while not overly exciting, ties up loose ends and is one of hope and optimism. Illegal is one of the best young adult novels of 2020.

Book Details:

Illegal by Francisco X. Stork
New York: Scholastic Press   2020
291 pp.

The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan

The Bitter Side of Sweet is a novel about the use of child labour and child trafficking in West Africa which supplies most of the world's cacao, a key ingredient in many types of confectionery. A report released last year by the Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine determined that in 2013/14, approximately 2.26 million children were working in cacao production, 2.12 million children were working in child labor in cacao production and 2.03 million children were working in hazardous work in cacao production in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana combined.

Fifteen-year-old Amadou and his eight-year-old brother Seydou work harvesting cacao pods in the Ivory Coast. Two years previous, they left Moke and Auntie for what they thought would be one year of work. Instead, they found themselves forced to work on a cacao farm run by Moussa and his two brothers, "all day, week after week, season after season, never getting paid."  They are beaten if they don't meet their daily quota.

Then one day a girl is brought into the camp. Her appearance at the camp is bizarre to Amadou because the camp is only filled with boys and men and because she is brought in alone. The girl is wild, cursing and fighting and she attempts to escape the minute she is untied. Amadou notes that she is well fed and her skin dark and shiny.  The girl is tied to a tree while Seydou, Amadou and Moussa go about harvesting the cacao pods. Amadou becomes annoyed with Seydou who does not listen to his instructions on how to cut the cacao pods safely from the trees and he moves off to another area.

However, shortly after this Amadou hears Seydou crying and discovers that the girl tricked Seydou into cutting her free and she's now run into the forest in an attempt to escape. Knowing that his little brother will be punished terribly for this, Amadou decides to take responsibility for her escape. He is dragged into the forest as Moussa tracks the girl and she is caught with the help of Amadou. When they return to the camp, Amadou is badly beaten for not making quota as is another boy, Modibo, and the girl whose name is Khadija. They are not given dinner and are locked into the toolshed. The other boys are locked into the sleeping shed. The next day, despite attempting to prove he is well enough to work on a crew Amadou is assigned to work in the camp shelling the pods. This greatly upsets him because he will not be able to watch out for his little brother.

Seydou goes out to work in the farm while Amadou and a reluctant Khadija work on the shelling of the cacao pods. To Amadou's great relief, Seydou returns home safely and has made quota. However as they are being locked into the shed that night, Khadija manages to escape again. This time she is brutally beaten. Once again, Khadija and Amadou are chained together and must work shelling cacao pods. Amadou helps Khadija but also works hard to shell the cacao pods.  However, the worst is yet to come when the crew returns that evening and Amadou learns that his brother Seydou has been seriously injured by a machete, which cut through his left arm near his hand.

Moussa tries to save Seydou's mangled arm by stitching the horrific wound together with thread and a needle but by the next morning Seydou is running a fever and his arm is infected. Amadou is sent into the fields for the day with Moussa, while Khadija is made to look after Seydou. But when Amadou returns after work, Seydou's arm is festering and  swollen and he is delirious. The next day Moussa sends Amadou into the fields telling him he will take care of Seydou. He chains Amadou and Khadija together telling Amadou that if she escapes he will kill Seydou.

In the cacao trees,  Amadou and Khadija work together. Amadou feels some sympathy for Khadija when she begins to get blisters. They know they have to make quota as the pisteurs, the drivers who collect the cacao seeds, will be coming soon. Khadija promises Amadou she will not run because she does not want any harm to come to Seydou. When they return to camp at first Amadou is heartened to see Seydou sitting up but when Seydou begins crying Amadou realizes that his arm below the elbow is missing. Horrified at what Moussa has done to Seydou, Amadou punches him in the face. He is tossed into the toolshed, still chained to Khadija. Thinking about what has happened to Seydou, Amadou realizes he will never be able to protect Seydou on the cacao farm and that they must escape. But how will they make it off a farm in the middle of the forest without being caught? Working together, Khadija and Amadou create a perfect storm that allows them to flee to safety and ultimately have their story of trafficking told.

Discussion

Cacao pods on a cacao tree.

One of the major factors that makes a successful historical fiction novel is the ability of the author to recreate the era or setting for his/her readers. The same applies to novels which are set in a country which is culturally very different from the one most readers of the novel live in. The Bitter Side of Sweet is set in the West African country of Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and from the very opening of the novel, author Tara Sullivan sets the stage for her novel. The first thing readers of this novel encounter upon opening the book is a map showing the location of Cote d'Ivoire within the African continent and a map of the Cote d'Ivoire showing the cities in the novel.

Most readers have no idea what a cacao tree looks like nor the pods that Amadou and his crew must climb for and cut from the trees. They probably don't know how the seeds from the cacao pods are made into the chocolate that we enjoy in Canada and the United States.  However, readers of The Bitter Side of Sweet will learn all this and more - especially about how most of the cacao in West Africa is harvested using child slave labour and that many of these labourers are trafficked. Underage workers harvest the cacao pods, doing work that is both difficult and unsafe. Forced to work in fields, these children do not attend school, meaning their futures are compromised if they escape.

Tara Sullivan does a wonderful job portraying how difficult Amadou, Seydou and the rest of the boys' lives are working on the cacao farm. This is evident from the very first page. The receive little food, "Neither Seydou nor I have eaten anything since breakfast, but Moussa is working too close for us to be able to sneak one of the cacao pods out of the sack", the working conditions are hot and dangerous, "I take a moment to wipe the sweat off my forehead. You'd think it would be cooler up here, but some days there isn't a breeze even halfway up a tree." They are beaten if they do not harvest enough pods, "Only twenty-five pods. Our sacks need to be full, at least forty or forty-five each, so I can get Seydou out of a beating. Really full if I want to get out of one too." In such conditions it's easy to see why boys like Amadou would quickly lose hope. "I don't count unripe pods. I don't count how many times I've been hit for being under quota. I don't count how many days it's been since I've given up hope of going home." Amadou has quickly learned to give up trying to escape, in the hope that he can somehow protect his much younger brother Seydou.

When Amadou and Seydou were first taken to the cacao farm, Amadou "used to think all the time: How can I run away? What is my family doing right now? Is Moke worried about us? Are they searching? How much longer will we have to work before we pay off our debt and the bosses let us go?"  But Amadou soon realizes that thinking about home means he doesn't make quota and he will be beaten. And so he has given up on trying to escape.

When Khadija arrives on the farm, she mocks Amadou for being "such a good boy" and tells him she's determined to escape. When her two attempts fail, she seems to have lost her will. However, it is Khadija's determination to escape and her refusal to accept this as her life combined with Seydou's serious injury, that leads Amadou to realize that they must either die trying to leave the cacao farm or spend a lifetime enslaved. "I've been trying to take care of Seydou in little ways for years, and clearly, today showed that it's not enough. Now it's time to take care of him in a big way. Because when I really think about it, Khadija was right all along. Living here is nothing more than killing Seydou slowly." 

As it turns out, Khadija's presence in the cacao farm is not by chance. Unlike Amadou, she was not tricked into working on the farm, but was kidnapped so as to force her mother from publishing an article on the illegal methods being used to farm cacao.  Later on in the novel, when Amadou, Seydou and Khadija return to Khadija's home, the author uses Khadija's mother to present some of the facts about cacao farming in West Africa within the context of the story. The situation is further explained in her Author's Note at the back of the book. Readers will learn that the luxury of chocolate bars we enjoy in Canada and America come at a high price - the lives of children in West Africa.

Those children are represented by the characters of Amadou, Khadija and Seydou. These are beautifully crafted characters, exhibiting courage, perseverance and compassion. Amadou shows compassion for Khadija when she is brutally beaten after her second escape attempt. "She's no one to you, why do you care? I try to tell myself, but the words are a lie...Then I hear a rustling as she pulls herself back together and a soft, broken sobbing, and all I can think about is how terrible it is to be alone when you're hurting." Amadou comforts Khadija and the next day helps her clean up, wiping her face and hands and giving her water to drink.

As the older brother, Amadou feels responsible for Seydou, but Seydou also takes care of Amadou when he receives a beating after taking the blame for Seydou when Khadija attempts to escape. He sneaks mangoes into the bag of cacao pods so his brother will have something to eat during the day besides the cacao seeds. Khadija undergoes a transformation during her time on the cacao farm. At first she is concerned only for her own fate, but soon comes to see that her actions have consequences on the other workers.

The Bitter Side of Sweet is a well written novel that will educate and awaken the social conscience of young people to the dark side of a treat taken for granted in Canada, the United States and Europe. Like Amadou and Seydou in the novel, most cacao farmers and child workers have no idea that cacao seeds are used to make chocolate for consumption by people in these countries. Despite the terrible experiences that Amadou, Seydou and Khadija have lived through, the novel ends on a hopeful tone. The exciting conclusion demonstrates the risks some have taken to get the truth about cacao known to the rest of the world.

Despite widespread publicity about the trafficking of children and the use of slave labour on cacao farms in Africa, little has changed. The Dark Side of Chocolate, a National Geographic documentary is worth watching.

Cacao tree image: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cocoa_Pods.JPG

Book Details:

The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Ltd.    2016
299 pp.

Night Letter by Meghan Nuttall Sayres

From each heart is a window to other hearts.
They are not separated like two bodies,
Just as, even though two lamps are not joined,
Their light is united by a single ray.

Night Letter is the sequel to Sayres' Anahita's Riddle which tells the story of a young Afshar girl who is determined to marry a man she loves rather than the thrice married khan of her tribe.

In Night Letter Anahita is travelling with her mother and grandmother to Marv for her wedding to Arash, the Qajar prince and governor of Marv. Their caravan is only days away from Marv.  On a windy night while Maman Bozorg, Anahita is startled to see three men wearing black turbans storm into their tent. They seize the two women, throw them over the backs of horses and race off across the plains. Hours later they stop at an oasis and when Anahita tries to protest she is hit in the face and knocked out. She awakes later on in a cave to learn that they have left her grandmother at the oasis and that she is now in the company of only two men, one she calls Hawk because of his eyes and an kinder man who speaks French whom she names Muhammad.

Anahita decides she will try to leave clues for those who will surely come in search of her. In the cave she leaves bloodied rags and manages to scratch some clues on the wall of the cave. As they continue their journey along the dusty plain to the north, Hawk reveals that Anahita is destined for a sigheh with a prominent man in Bukhara. A sigheh is a temporary marriage that a woman makes voluntarily, setting the duration and bride price.  Anahita has no intention of agreeing to such a thing even as Hawk threatens her.

Meanwhile Arash learns from young Pirouz, the street boy Arash befriended, that Anahita has been kidnapped. Pirouz learned of Anahita's predicament in the market and he tells Arash that Anahita is to be sold as slaves. Arash's scouts inform him that the Afshars believe that Anahita will be taken to Bukhara. However, Ismail and Arash do not believe she will be sold into slavery but rather that her captors want a ransom. Arash sends his scouts to search the routes to Bukhara, Samarkand and Herat as well as the routes to Isqhabad, Tabriz and Constantinople.

Arash decides to go to the oasis where Anahita was last seen with her grandmother and follow her tracks.  His friend Ismail tells him that should he have to buy back Anahita from the slave market in Bukhara, he will need a great deal of money. Arash instructs Ismail to travel to Bukhara, a protectorate of Russia and should he find Anahita there, to buy her back.

Continuing on her journey, Anahita, Muhammad and Hawk cross the Rhud Amu Darya and up the mountain. Anahita, Muhammad and Hawk reach the summit of the mountain but their descent triggers an avalanche that buries Muhammad and half buries Anahita to her waist, slamming her into a tree and cracking her ribs. Hawk and his horse, Rakhsh escape unscathed, but Anahita learns that Muhammad who's real name is Mahan is no where to be found. Hawk frees Anahita from the snow and does not stop to search for Mahan, instead forcing her to journey to Bukhara

Everyone begins searching now for Anahita. Dariyoush, who was seriously wounded in the thigh during Anahita's kidnapping, decides to set out in pursuit of Anahita.  He traces the kidnappers to the oasis and then follows a trail to Samarkand. In Marv, where Anahita's caravan has arrived her father, Kadkhuda Farhad, organizes Arash's soldiers while Reza and Pirouz take the train to Isqhabad.Reza and Pirouz do not find Anahita in the slave markets in Isqhabad and Reza sends Pirouz back to Marv while he journey's on to Bukhara. Farhad decides to leave for Bukhara telling Maman Bozog, Mojdeh and Shirin that they will stay in Marv. However, Maman Bozog has her own plans, knowing the men will not be able to search within the women's circles of the city for Anahita.

Arash and Dariyoush unexpectedly meet up on the plains near the mountains where Arash directs Dariyoush to travel to Bukhara, while he continues onward to Samarkand. During this time Anahita and Hawk stop at a teahouse in a village on the side of the mountain. After resting and obtaining boots for Anahita, they continue their journey with Hawk revealing his name to be Taman Bas and his intention to sell Anahita to the Emir Abdullah of Bukhara. Can Arash and Anahita's family save her from such a terrible fate?

Night Letter is a thrilling sequel that vividly portrays life in early 20th century Iran while tackling the issue of slavery and trafficking. Sayres' prose manages to convey both a sense of danger and romance as Anahita faces the real threat of a forced temporary marriage, while her devoted family and her beloved fiance struggle to find and free her. Sayres uses the first person narration of Anahita alternating with the third person narratives which tell what is happening to other characters in the story as they hunt for her. Anahita's voice is realistic, alternating between courage and boldness, and overwhelming fear. At times she even begins to doubt the presence of Allah in all of her trials.

The title of the novel refers to anonymous letters that were written outlining grievances against the Persian Qajar dynasty and read in teahouses during the early 1900's. One such grievance was the selling of the women and girls of the town of Quchan when the men were unable to pay their taxes to the local governor after a drought. Sayres incorporates this tragic real life event into her novel and supplies more information about it in an author's note at the back of the book. The situation was discussed in night letters like the one Anahita wrote and resulted in debates in the Majlis, the Iranian parliament and ultimately led to the investigation and trial of those responsible.

As with the first novel, Night Letter is filled with many of the customs and traditions of Persia, especially regarding the relations between men and women and marriage. Sayres manages to convey the strong sense of family in society as both Arash and Anahita's families work together to save her. There are also several verses of the beautiful poetry of  the Persian poets, Jalaluddin Rumi, Hafiz, Rabi'a of Basra, Omar Khayyam and Mirabi of India.

Night Letter is populated with the same fascinating and beautifully crafted characters; the strong, courageous Anahita, noble Arash, the determined Dariyoush who still deeply loves Anahita, brave Pirouz, and the wise Maman Bozog. The villains, the heartless Taman Bas, Mahan who was blackmailed and soon comes to regret what he has done and the spoiled, cruel emir are equally well done, lending depth to the story.

The cover art for this novel was done by Tehran artist, Rashin Kheiriyeh and portrays a bride kidnapping.  In a note from Kheiriyeh he writes that the painting was done in the Persian miniature style which features the use of vibrant colours and oriental patterns using pencil and acrylic. There is an extensive Author's Note at the back of the novel, along with a discussion guide and an extensive glossary while the front of the novel contains a map of the region showing Anahita's journey.

Night Letter is highly recommend to those who enjoy historical fiction, especially that of the Middle East. Well written, exciting and fascinating to read!

Book Details:
Night Letter by Meghan Nuttall Sayres
Orange County: California.    Nortia Press    2012
281 pp.