The Solace of Trees

Widespread print ARC distribution (2017) yielded strong reviews in Booklist, LJ, and PW Book may have a shot at the Vermont Book Award and other awards: submitting in winter/spring 2018 2018 events: Author--who has a successful national book tour in summer/fall 2017 (which helped get 22 reviews, with 4+ stars, on Amazon--is available for events in across New England and the Northeast (venues in focus: bookstores, libraries, colleges, and organizations with an interest in refugee/immigration) Book club adoption? The book is perfect, publisher keen to discuss Adoption by library consortiums in New England? This may be the only major novel about a young Muslim refugee adopted in New England whose life comes undone after 9/11. How to get more libraries to order? In 2017: electronic ARC through Edelweiss + Net Galley

A young refugee finds a new home in America⎯until the aftermath of 9/11 tests him as never before.The Solace of Trees tells the story of Amir, a young boy of secular Muslim heritage who witnesses his family’s murder in the Bosnian War. Amir hides in a forest, mute and shocked, among refugees fleeing for their lives. Narrowly escaping death, he finds sanctuary, and after a charity relocates him to the United States, the retired professor who fosters Amir learns that the boy holds a shameful secret concerning his parents’ and sister’s deaths. Amir’s years in the US bring him healing. As Amir enters adulthood, his destiny brings him full circle back to the darkness he thought he’d forever escaped. Described from the perspective of a child victim, The Solace of Trees is the lesser-told story of the tragedy of war, from the Bosnian War to the US policy of government-sponsored abductions. A tale shared by countless victims in countless times and places, it is both a sobering look at the hidden cost of war and an affirmation of the human spirit.