No Place Strange

by Diana Fitzgerald Bryden

A novel about connections made and lost, No Place Strange follows four people affected by the actions of a beautiful Palestinian terrorist named Rafa Ahmed. Lydia is a young Jewish Canadian woman running from the truth about her father’s involvement with Rafa, who may be implicated in his murder. Lydia escapes to Greece, where she meets Farid, a young Lebanese man who has left his home for Athens. Farid’s mother Mariam, once Rafa’s professor, is struggling to maintain a normal life in Beirut in the midst of civil war, while his cousin Mouna is a political activist dangerously obsessed with Rafa. Lydia and Farid fall in love, but any possibility for real happiness is jeopardized by Arab–Israeli hostilities, the capriciousness of fate, and a past that neither of them can quite escape.

(From Publisher).

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden is the author of two books of poetry: Learning Russian (Mansfield Press, 2000), nominated for the Pat Lowther Award, and Clinic Day (Brick Books, 2004). She moved to Toronto from England as a teenager, and still lives there. No Place Strange is her first novel, and she is currently working on a second.