Farishta

April 11, 2011
With its shades of A Bell for Adano, McArdle's debutâwinner of the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awardâis a quietly devastating novel about an American trying to do good in a foreign land, but finding that best intentions are not always enough to overcome bureaucracy and entrenched folkways. Twenty-two years after her husband was killed and she was injured and lost her unborn baby in the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing, Angela Morgan sees her Foreign Service career at a dead end until she's sent to a remote British army outpost in northern Afghanistan. She finds herself, as an American, at odds with her British counterparts, and, as a woman, at odds with the culture's attitude toward her gender. In the course of secretly trying to help the locals (and gaining the name FarishtaâDari for angel), Angela begins two touching relationship; one with Rahim, her translator, who, at 23, reminds her of the son she never had; the other with Maj. Mark Davies, a handsome British intelligence officer. Events conspire to force Angela to choose between public service and personal happiness. Based on her experiences as a Foreign Service officer in Afghanistan, McArdle writes insightfully about the quagmire in that country and the human cost of war.

April 15, 2011

The unvarnished but heartfelt tale of the lone woman stationed with a remote reconstruction team in northern Afghanistan during a year marked by romance, tragedy and solar ovens—winner of the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Retired American diplomat McArdle's own experience gives authentic flavor to her story of American diplomat Angela (translated as angel or Farishta in the Dari language) Morgan, forced to choose between early retirement and an unappealing 12-month posting to Mazar-i-Sharif in the war zone. Widowed after a bombing in Beirut and still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, 47-year-old Angela is driven by determination and impulsiveness, both of which emerge when defying convention by riding a stallion in public, facing down warlords and moving around without armed guards in dangerous territory. In an episodic narrative, she befriends her translator Rahim and gets embroiled in his forbidden love affair; saves the life of an Afghani child; falls foul of a devious but attractive Russian spy; engages with imprisoned and segregated women; finds a purpose in introducing solar ovens to a population busily denuding its country of trees; and encounters romance again with a younger, starchier man, a British Major who initially disapproves of her presence and activities. Despite the danger and drama, the story's pedestrian tone is accented by a documentary feel and wooden dialogue, although a final sequence of disasters intensifies emotion.

Sincere but earthbound.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011
After her husband died in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, and she suffered a miscarriage days later, Angela Morgan saw her foreign service career founder. Twenty years later, lacking sufficient promotions, she faces mandatory retirement. Then she's offered an assignment in Afghanistan and a chance to win brownie points. Skillful with languages, she's tutored in Dari before joining a provisional reconstruction team at a British army outpost in Mazar-i-Sharif, where she is to keep her language fluency secret in order to check the accuracy of native interpreters. The only woman at her post, Angela (called Farishta in Dari) gains respect and defies convention with her horsemanship in a buskashi game and by standing up to a powerful warlord, wins the friendship of her young male Afghan terp, and predictably finds romance with a British officer. But retired diplomat McArdle, who served in northern Afghanistan, provides unexpected plot twists in this first novel notable for its informed view of modern Afghanistan and its affecting story of one woman making a difference.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)