Sirine's now-deceased missionary parents were Iraqi and American; she's been raised since she was nine by her beloved Iraqi uncle. Her world is his house, the cafewhere she is chef, and the air of Los Angeles. She's nearly 40, and inside her pale skin and green eyes she feels the rhythms of her uncle's Arabic stories and the scent of Eastern spices. Hanif ("Han"), a professor of Arabic literature at the local university, comes to the cafefor the tastes of home, and he and Sirine fall into an affair of wild, sweet tenderness. After 20 years away, Han is driven, despite Saddam, to return to Iraq to see if anything is left of his family. Sirine is devastated and feels responsible. Each chapter begins with an installment of a fantastical family story told by Sirine's uncle; the rest of the novel is written in the present tense. Abu-Jaber's language is miraculous, whether describing the texture of Han's skin or Sirine's way with an onion. It is not possible to stop reading. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido

A timely fiction about Iraqi intellectuals in Los Angeles blends the whimsy of Scheherazade-style storytelling with the urgency of contemporary politics. Sirine lives an unruffled life in Los Angeles, winning the hearts and stomachs of the homesick Arab students who frequent the Middle Eastern restaurant where she is chef. At 39, she still sleeps in her childhood bed, in the home of her kindly uncle. When she was nine, Sirine's parents (Iraqi father and American mother) were killed on the job as Red Cross relief workers, and Uncle's home, filled with Arab scholars from the university where he teaches, has been her haven ever since. A new colleague of his begins frequenting the cafÉ--the handsome and kind Hanif. The two begin a passionate (and flavorful: much of the story is concerned with cooking) affair, but Uncle warns Sirine that Arabs are lonely people, exiled Arabs lonelier yet. Having escaped his beloved Baghdad just as Saddam Hussein came to power, Hanif hasn't seen his family in 20 years and believes that his sister's death is the result of his own subversive essays. Others give context to the romance: Um-Nadia, who owns the cafÉ, is always ready to read Sirine's coffee-grounds; the poet Aziz, full of mischief, has an eye for Sirine himself; and Nathan, an American photographer who lived in Baghdad, may have more of a connection to Sirine and Hanif than anyone knows. Woven throughout is Uncle's tall tale of Auntie Camille, who sells herself into slavery, journeys down the Nile to speak with the Mother of All Fishes, meets a mermaid, and then travels the desert with the Blue Bedouins, all in the hope of finding her naughty son, cousin Abdelrahman Salahadin (who may or may not have changed his name later to Omar Sharif). When Hanif grows withdrawn, there is the fear that he may return to Baghdad, to home, and to almost certain death. What might have been the stuff of any romance is forged into a powerful story about the loneliness of exile and the limits of love. An impressive second outing by Abu-Jaber (Arabian Jazz, 1993). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Abu-Jaber (Arabian Jazz) weaves the story of a love affair between a comely chef and a handsome, haunted Near Eastern Studies professor together with a fanciful tale of a mother's quest to find her wayward son in this beautifully imagined and timely novel, which explores private emotions and global politics with both grace and conviction. Green-eyed, 39-year-old Sirine cooks up Arab specialties in a bustling cafe in Los Angeles where Arab students gather for a taste of home. When her doting uncle, who raised her after the death of her relief-worker parents 30 years ago, introduces her to his colleague Hanif, the placid surface of her life is disturbed. Their affair begins quickly and ardently, as Sirine, who has heretofore equated cooking with love, discovers the pleasures of romance, and the exiled Han struggles to feel grounded in a place far from the Baghdad he loved as a boy. In Abu-Jaber's sensuous prose, the city is as lush and fragrant as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her secondary characters, like the wry, wise cafe owner Um-Nadia and the charmingly narcissistic poet and satyr Aziz, are appealingly eccentric. But a darkly troubled photographer drawn to both Sirine and Han, news of Saddam Hussein's latest atrocities and Han's painful memories of his imprisoned brother and his disappeared sister, for whose fates he feels responsible, cloud their affair, perhaps dooming it. Abu-Jaber's poignant contemplations of exile and her celebration of Sirine's exotic, committed domesticity-almond cookies, cardamom, and black tea with mint-help make this novel feel as exquisite as the "flaming, blooming" mejnoona tree behind Nadia's Cafe. Agent, Joy Harris. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this follow-up to Abu-Jaber's justly praised debut, Arabian Jazz, spinsterish Sirine lives to cook until a charming Arabic literature professor shows up in her restaurant. Big foreign sales. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.