ABOUT MY UPCOMING BOOK due out January 2015:

The Syrian by Cathy Sultan

The Syrian is a powerful contemporary novel of passion and betrayal, set

against the brutal and bewildering outbreak of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in

Lebanon, 2006.

Nadia, a woman who has waited 13 years for a husband who was ‘disappeared’

by Lebanon’s occupier, the Syrians, finally decides to declare him dead and

allow herself happiness with an American physician, Andrew Sullivan.

Nadia’s best friend, Sonia, a well connected foreign correspondent, is out

to get Andrew for herself and draws in the powerful head of the Syrian

secret police, Hassan Jaafar, to help her in her Byzantine manipulations.

Professionally, Sonia is also on a mission to discover who really murdered

the popular Lebanese prime minister, Rafic Hariri, the discovery of which

would hugely embarrass the Americans and their main Middle East ally.

Hassan Jaafar has loved Nadia since she was a student at the American

University of Beirut. She discouraged his attentions because he was part of

the Syrian occupation of her country. His love for Nadia has not dissipated

in the 15 Years since she rejected him and married her professor, but now as

Syria’s Intelligence Chief he is very dangerous and influential. Sonia may

or may not know what she has unleashed upon her friend.

The novel opens when Nadia, relaxing at her parents’ Beirut home, excitedly

awaiting the arrival of her fiancé Andrew. In the middle of her happiness Sonia rings

and tells her not only that Elie is still alive in a Damascus prison, but

that Sonia has set in motion the possibility of a meeting between Nadia and

Jaafar. From here the reader turns the pages furiously as the plot twists

and turns, becoming increasingly dangerous and bloody, as the border

conflict escalates with the book’s protagonists having retreated to the

south of Lebanon for safety.

In her commitment to the verisimilitude learned from writing three

non-fiction books about the Middle East, Cathy Sultan is not willing to fall

into cliche or easy endings: prepare for unforeseen surprises!