Fereiba, a young Afghan woman who has been educated to become a teacher, leaves her troubled childhood behind and enters into an arranged marriage.  Over the next few years she survives many changes:  some personal and some political.  In 1979, Soviet soldiers had invaded Afghan soil and their rockets left many dead.  After their retreat, a new regime begins to rise:  the Taliban imposing their decrees in accordance with Islamic tradition.  As the restrictions put in place by the Taliban bring about the destruction of Afghan society in Kabul, instead of feeling the joy of life, Fereiba only feels the suffocation that continues to surround her.  What can her future now bring?  Is it possible to plan an escape?  When her family becomes a target for the new regime and her husband is murdered, she is forced to flee with her three children.  Traveling with forged papers, her only hope for survival is to find refuge with her sister's family in London.  As Fereiba and her children cross into Iran on the start of a dangerous journey, her role as a respected wife is soon reduced to that of a desperate refugee.  Crossing border after border, her fate takes on a frightening turn in Athens when her teenage son, Saleen, becomes separated from the rest of the family and forced to come of age in a world of human trafficking and the squalor of refugee camps.  Fereiba's only choice is to continue on with her daughter and sick baby son as Mother and Saleen separately cross perilous borders with the hopes of finding a place where they can become a family again.  Hashimi's ability to conjure such beautiful language into the amazing storytelling of a determined woman and her journey to survive can also be found in the author's first novel, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, now in paperback.  (William Morrow, $25.99). 

Blanca Perea is a talented professor teaching college literature courses in Madrid.  Married for twenty years with two adult sons, she feels she has it all.  But suddenly her husband drops a bombshell when he leaves her for another woman, shattering her world as she questions the life she thought she once had.  She decides to change her surroundings and accepts a research grant in California where she will look into the life of an exiled Spanish writer who died decades ago.  As she leaves her own troubled life in Madrid behind, Blanca is now drawn into the writer's haunted world and the complex life that touched the loves and unfulfilled ambitions of his colleagues.  As she is challenged with hidden agendas and determined to uncover lies, she finds the strength to pursue a new life of her own.  Highly recommended.  (Atria Paperbacks, $16.00).