My New Book: The Way Out

Time, trauma, and liminality in the Arabian Gulf

Publication day is here for The Way Out.

The novel begins when the narrator sees a man in the crowd who cannot exist. The man is Al Ghareeb, an ominous imaginary being from her childhood. His appearance signals the start of an ordeal that will unravel her troubled life…

I’m so excited this book is finally out in the world! I began writing it four years ago to craft a novel that would bring to life an Arabian Gulf souq. I pulled from my lifetime living in the Arabian Gulf and 65 years of my family’s memories and experiences – and then added an eerie, surreal undercurrent. As I wrote, the story sizzled to life, getting spookier and weirder with each page. The novel brims with the drone of traffic, the rush of waves, the scent of scalded milk and saffron, footsteps echoing off coral stone buildings, dreams laced with rain and jasmine, and a narrator who slips and slides through her own memories, determined to find the way out.

The Way Out is a literary metaphysical mystery that explores time, trauma, and liminality. The narrator is an adult third-culture kid so there is also an element of transculturality, swirling meditations on what it means to be from the margins. Also, the narrator is autistic. I actually received my autism diagnosis in the midst of writing this book and realized it was already full of the unique autistic linguistic traits autistic writers are known for.

So far readers are calling The Way Out a thrilling page-turner rich with evocative language and an immersive setting.

You can purchase The Way Out as a paperback and as an e-book from Amazon. And if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber the e-book is currently FREE.