Friday Finds ~ March 4

This is my first time participating in Friday Finds.  Should you wish to see more Friday Finds please visit Should Be Reading.

The following books have been added to my TBR list.

The Salt Road by Jane Johnson author of The Tenth Gift.

      Found while browsing Chapters online.

From the author of The Tenth Gift comes another story of exotic, foreign lands, entwining story lines spanning generations, and the quests to overcome love lost.

"My dear Isabelle, in the attic you will find a box with your name on it."

Isabelle''s estranged archaeologist father dies, leaving her a puzzle. In a box she finds some papers and a mysterious African amulet - but their connection to her remains unclear until she embarks on a trip to Morocco to discover how the amulet came into her father''s possession. When the amulet is damaged and Isabelle almost killed in an accident, she fears her curiosity has got the better of her. But Taib, her rescuer, knows the dunes and their peoples, and offers to help uncover the amulet''s extraordinary history, involving Tin Hinan - She of the Tents - who made a legendary crossing of the desert, and her beautiful descendant Mariata.

Across years and over hot, shifting sands, tracking the Salt Road, the stories of Isabelle and Taib, Mariata and her lover, become entangled with that of the lost amulet. It is a tale of souls wounded by history and of love blossoming on barren ground
 
 
Dreams of Joy by Lisa See.  Dreams of Joy is the continuation of Shanghai Girls.  Publish Date: May 31, 2011
Found on At Home With Books while blog hopping.
 
In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful novel yet, she returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl's strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.



Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father-the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime.


Devastated by Joy's flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy's and Pearl's separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China's history threatens their very lives.

Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love
 

Sharaf by Raj Kumar
   Found while exploring Good Reads, have entered to win this book.
 
The first volume of a gripping trilogy set in Saudi Arabia, this is a story of love, loyalty, intrigue, suspicion, and intolerance



Major-General Farhan Al-Balawi is a loyal soldier in the Saudi Arabian army who dotes on his beloved daughter, Maryam, his pride in her learning and independent spirit sharpened by the death of his elder son and his estrangement from the younger who has opted to pursue a hedonistic western lifestyle in the U. S. Despite the love she shares with her family, the pride she takes in her Arabian heritage, and her loyalty to Islam, Maryam yearns to travel and to continue her education in a European university. When Farhan announces that Maryam is to marry the son of a man who once saved his life, as the fulfillment of a promise made before she was born, Maryam endeavors to stifle her bitter disappointment and honor her father's wishes. Then she meets Joe, an American dentist—and a Jew. As Joe and Maryam pursue an increasingly intimate clandestine relationship they dare to dream of freedom and of a life together. But Joe is gradually drawing the attention of the Muttawa, the feared religious police, and when Maryam realizes that she is pregnant, it is then that her trials really begin.



The Other Life by Ellen Meister
   Found on At Home With Books while blog hopping.

If you could return to the road not taken would you? Happily married and pregnant Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret. Every time she makes a major life decision she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice-not only that she knows how to cross over. But even in her darkest moments-like her mother's suicide-Quinn hasn't been tempted to slip through...until she receives devastating news about the baby she's carrying. The grief lures her to peek across the portal and before she knows it she's in the midst of the other life: the life in which she married another man and is childless. The life in which her mother is still very much alive. Quinn is forced to make a heartbreaking choice. Will she stay with the family she loves and her severely disabled child? Or will an easier life-and the primal need to be with her mother-win out?If you could return to the road not taken would you? Happily married and pregnant Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret. Every time she makes a major life decision she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice-not only that she knows how to cross over. But even in her darkest moments-like her mother's suicide-Quinn hasn't been tempted to slip through...until she receives devastating news about the baby she's carrying. The grief lures her to peek across the portal and before she knows it she's in the midst of the other life: the life in which she married another man and is childless. The life in which her mother is still very much alive. Quinn is forced to make a heartbreaking choice. Will she stay with the family she loves and her severely disabled child? Or will an easier life-and the primal need to be with her mother-win out?

Signing off till next time.