In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills 
Jennifer Haupt, 2018
Central Avenue Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781771681339


Summary
In 1968, a disillusioned and heartbroken Lillian Carlson left Atlanta after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

She found meaning in the hearts of orphaned African children and cobbled together her own small orphanage in the Rift Valley alongside the lush forests of Rwanda.

Three decades later, in New York City, Rachel Shepherd, lost and heartbroken herself, embarks on a journey to find the father who abandoned her as a young child, determined to solve the enigma of Henry Shepherd, a now-famous photographer.

When an online search turns up a clue to his whereabouts, Rachel travels to Rwanda to connect with an unsuspecting and uncooperative Lillian.

While Rachel tries to unravel the mystery of her father's disappearance, she finds unexpected allies in an ex-pat doctor running from his past and a young Tutsi woman who lived through a profound experience alongside her father.

Set against the backdrop of a country grieving and trying to heal after a devastating civil war, follow the intertwining stories of three women who discover something unexpected: grace when there can be no forgiveness. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Seattle, Washington, USA
• Education—University of Wisconsin
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington


Jennifer Haupt went to Rwanda as a journalist in 2006, a decade after the genocide that wiped out over a million people, to explore the connections between forgiveness and grief.

She spent a month travelling in the 10,000 hills with a guide, interviewing genocide survivors and humanitarian aid workers, and came home to Seattle with something unexpected: the bones of a novel.

Her essays and articles have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Rumpus, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, The Seattle Times, Spirituality & Health, and many other publications. In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is her first novel. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Readers will appreciate a heightened perspective when comparing Rachel’s loss and struggles to the mass slaughter of an entire ethnic group. I left the book wanting to know more about current relations between the Hutus and Tutsis.
Abby Fabiaschi, AUTHOR - LitLovers


A woman’s pursuit of the truth about what happened to her father leads her to post-genocide Rwanda in Haupt’s ambitious debut.… Even though it’s ostensibly about the Rwandan genocide, Haupt’s story is one of humanity and hope.
Publishers Weekly


[T]hese resilient women embody the grace of a nation moving forward after unspeakable loss. Verdict: Journalist Haupt spent time in Rwanda researching the nature of grief and forgiveness. In this intensely beautiful debut, she shows that it's indeed the women who hold up half the sky. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal


There are villains and horrible atrocities with far-reaching effects, but as Haupt examines events through different perspectives, the focus is on healing rather than revenge and anger.… [A] good choice for those seeking tales of hope after adversity and may prove popular with book clubs.
Booklist


[T]his novel is a glittering gem.
Powell's City of Books, Seattle

Discussion Questions
1. Which character were you most interested in learning more about and why?

2. All of the characters have secrets they keep from each other for various reasons. Did you think these reasons were selfish or compassionate—or both?

3. Which character’s main dilemma could you relate to the most and why?

4. Were there any characters who, at first, you had little empathy for and then developed more compassion as their storyline progressed?

5. There are several love affairs in this novel. Which one drew you in the most and why?

6. Which character surprised you the most—when and why?

7. Forgiveness is a theme in this novel. Where there any characters who were forgiven, who you thought shouldn’t have been? Where there any characters who weren’t forgiven who you thought should have been?

8. How do each of the main characters learn to embrace “Amahoro,” sorrow for the past and hope for the future?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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Alif the Unseen 
G. Willow Wilson, 2012
Grove Press
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802121226


Summary
In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble.

He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind.

The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the state’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lover’s new fiance is the "Hand of God," as they call the head of state security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground.

When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.

With shades of Neal Stephenson, Philip Pullman, and The Thousand and One Nights, Alif the Unseen is a tour de force debut—a sophisticated melting pot of ideas, philosophy, technology, and spirituality smuggled inside an irresistible page-turner. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 31, 1982
• Where—Morris County, New Jersey
• Raised—Boulder, Colorado, USA
• Education—B.A., Boston University
• Awards—World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (see below)
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington, and Cairo, Egypt


Gwendolyn Willow Wilson, known professionally as G. Willow Wilson, is an American comics writer, memoirist, novelist, essayist, and journalist. She is best known for relaunching the Ms. Marvel title for Marvel Comics (which stars a 16-year-old Muslim superhero named Kamala Khan). But she has also received praise for her memoir and novels.

Early life
Wilson was born in Morris County, New Jersey, where she spent the first ten years of her life. She was introduced to comics in the fifth grade while reading an anti-smoking pamphlet featuring the X-Men. Hooked by the characters and their magical stories, she began watching the X-Men cartoons every Saturday.

Two years later she and her family moved to Boulder, Colorado where Wilson continued to pursue her interest in comics and other forms of popular culture such as tabletop role-playing games.

When she turned 27, Wilson decided to leave Colorado and to pursue a degree in history at Boston University. During her sophomore year, while experiencing adrenal problems, she took up the study of world religions, including Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Having grown up in an unreligious household, Wilson felt drawn to Judaism's belief in an "indivisible God who is one and whole." Yet, although Judaism "was a near perfect fit," she explained in a 2017 interview, "it was created for a single tribe of people."

Wislon then turned her focus to Islam, which she saw as "a sort of a deal between you and God." The 9/11 terrorist attack set back her religious studies—fearing she had misjudged the religion—but she later resumed her studies. After graduation, on the way to Cairo where she had taken a job to teach English, Wilson experienced a converstion to Islam: "I made peace with God. I called him Allah."

Living in Egypt, and struggling to negotiate a new culture, Wilson met Omar, a young physics teacher, who offered to serve as a cultural guide, and within a matter of months, the two became engaged. Later, the couple moved to the United States where Wilson returned to her writing career, and Omar worked as a legal advocate for refugees.

Jouralism
During her time in Cairo, Wilson began contributing articles to the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine and National Post. She was also a regular contributor to the now-defunct Egyptian opposition weekly Cairo Magazine. Wilson was the first Western journalist to be granted a private interview with Ali Gomaa after his promotion to the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt.

In 2007, Wilson wrote her first graphic novel, Cairo, with art by M.K. Perker; it was named one of the best graphic novels of 2007 by Publishers Weekly, The Edmonton Journal/CanWest News, and Comics Worth Reading. In 2008 the paperback edition was named one of Best Graphic Novels for High School Students in 2008 by School Library Journal, and one of 2009's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association.

Comics
A year later, in 2008, Wilson launched her first ongoing comic series, "Air." Reunited with her Cairo graphic artist M.K. Perker, "Air" received the Eisner Award for Best New Series of 2009, while NPR named it one of the top comics of 2009.

Wilson also wrote "Superman" fill-in issues #704 and 706 of Superman, the five-issue mini-series "Vixen: Return of the Lion." and "The Outsiders." She then revived "Mystic,"a four-issue miniseries for Marvel Comics (with art by David Lopez)—although a CrossGen revival, Willow's version of "Mystic" bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation.

In 2014, Marvel debuted a new "Ms. Marvel" series written by Wilson. The book stars Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenager living in Jersey City, New Jersey, who takes up the mantle—now that the previous Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, has taken the name Captain Marvel.

Although worried about criticism, Wilson did not believe Kamala should wear a hijab because the majority of teenage Muslim Americans do not cover their heads. Despite their initial concern, Kamala was received positively—some seeing her as a symbol for equality and religious diversity.

In 2018, Wilson began writing "Wonder Woman" from DC Comics. The character will battle Ares in an arc entitled "The Just War."

Books
Wilson's experiences in Egypt became the subject of her 2010 memoir, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam. The book was named a Seattle Times Best Book the same year.

Three years later, Wilson turned to novels: 2013 saw the release of her debut, Alif the Unseen. The book won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for best novel.

Wilson's next fantasy novel came out in 2019 —The Bird King, the story of a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain before the new Christian monarchy began its rule. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/18/2019 .)

Book Reviews
[Ms. Wilson] has her own fertile imagination and fanciful narrative style… as an American convert to Islam who divides her time between the United States and Egypt, she has an unusual ability to see the best of both worlds. In Alif the Unseen she spins her insights into an exuberant fable that has thrills, chills and—even more remarkably—universal appeal.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Wilson's fast-paced, imaginative first novel… defies easy categorization. Is it literary fiction? A fantasy novel? A dystopian techno-thriller? An exemplar of Islamic mysticism, with ties to the work of the Sufi poets? Wilson seems to delight in establishing, then confounding, any expectations readers may have…For those who view American fiction as provincial, or dominated by competent but safe work, Wilson's novel offers a resounding, heterodox alternative.
Pauls Toutonghi - New York Times Book Review


G. Willow Wilson's marvelous first novel… takes events similar to those of the Arab Spring, adds a runaway computer virus, an unconventional love story and the odd genie to create an intoxicating, politicized amalgam of science fiction and fantasy… Alif the Unseen confronts some of the most pressing concerns of our young century, but it's also hugely entertaining. Wilson has a Dickensian gift for summoning a city and peopling it with memorable characters.
Elizabeth Hand - Washington Post


Written just before the Arab Spring, this wild adventure mixes the digital derring-do of Neal Stephenson with the magic of The Thousand and One Nights.… Alif the Unseen is a rich blend of storytelling magic.
San Francisco Chronicle


Outstanding.… Wilson’s novel delights in bending genres and confounding expectations: It’s both a literary techno-thriller and a fantasy that takes religion very seriously.… Alif the Unseen… is one of the most inventive, invigorating novels of the year.
Christian Science Monitor


A fantasy thriller that takes modern Islamic computer hackers fighting against State-based repression and entangles that with the fantastical Djinn-riddled world of One Thousand and One Nights.… Like a novelization of one of Joss Whedon’s best Buffy episodes crossed with a Pathe newsreel of the Arab Spring uprisings. It’s a page-turner.
Austin Chronicle


A magical book. The supernatural and sociopolitical thriller Alif the Unseen is timely literary alchemy, a smart, spirited swirl of current events and history; religion and mysticism; reality and myth; computer science and metaphysics.… Alif the Unseen richly rewards believers in the power of the written word.
Seattle Times


Outrageously enjoyable.… The energetic plotting of Philip Pullman, the nimble imagery of Neil Gaiman and the intellectual ambition of Neal Stephenson are three comparisons that come to mind.
Salon.com


[An] excellent modern fairytale.… [Wilson] surpasses the early work of Stephenson and Gaiman, with whom comparisons have already been made.… Alif the Unseen will find many fans in both West and East. They will appreciate it for being just the fine story it is and as a seed for potent ideas yet to come.
io9.com


[I]intriguing, colorful…. Wilson provocatively juxtaposes ancient Arab lore and equally esoteric computer theory, highlighting the many facets of the East-West conflict while offering few insights, to some readers’ regret, into possible resolutions of that conflict.
Publishers Weekly


[I]maginative…. Wilson skillfully weaves … modern-day technologies and computer languages to the folklore and religion of the Middle East. [O]riginal storytelling, this excellent novel supersedes genres as easily as its characters jump from one reality to another. —Catherine Lantz, Morton College Lib., Cicero, Il
Library Journal

The novel is timely…. But though Wilson… displays a savvy knowledge of Muslim arcana, the story is overstuffed with left turns… and bogs down in jargon.… [Still] Wilson displays an admirable Neil Gaiman-esque ambition that isn't quite matched by this oft-plodding tale.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for ALIF THE UNSEEN … then take off on your own:

1. Talk about the world created by G. Willow Wilson. Do you find it absorbing, realistic yet touched with magic? Or is it silly and overdone? Which characters do you find most interesting, humorous, endearing … or less than endearing?

2. What are the ways in which the author juxtaposes the modern world of computing with the traditional Arab world of Islam?

3. Follow-up to Question 2: Consider the issue of sin: if a sin is committed in virtual reality, is it still a sin? What are your thoughts?

4. What do you make of Alif's character? What of his observation that "the few Americans he had encountered in his lifetime had all seemed flat to him, as if freedom weakened one's capacity for intense emotion by demanding too little of it"?

5. When Alif looks into the eyes of Vikram the Vampire, he sees a "predatory, unnerving humor, like the musing of a leopard in a pen of goats." Care to unpack that description of Vikram … what it might reveal (or not reveal) about his character? How do you come to see Vikram as the novel unfolds?

6. When Vikram lectures Alif about cyberspace invisibility, he says, "Now you are more interested in the veil between man and photon than the one between man and jinn." What is he getting at?

7. How do the genies Alif and Dina encounter in the Empty Quarter upend your expectations of the typical genies of myth?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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I'd Give Anything 
Marisa de los Santos, 2020
HarperCollins
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062844514


Summary
A profound and heart-rending story about a horrific tragedy that marks one woman and her hometown and about the explosive secrets that come to light twenty years later.

Ginny Beale is eighteen, irreverent, funny, and brave, with a brother she adores and a circle of friends for whom she would do anything.

Because of one terrible night, she loses them all—and her adventurous spirit—seemingly forever. While the town cheers on the high school football team, someone sets the school’s auditorium ablaze. Ginny’s best friend Gray Marsden’s father, a fire fighter, dies in the blaze.

While many in the town believe a notoriously troubled local teen set the fire, Ginny makes a shattering discovery that casts blame on the person she trusts most in the world. Ginny tells no one, but the secret isolates her, looming between her and her friends and ruining their friendship.

Over the next two decades, Ginny puts aside her wanderlust and her dreams. Moving back to her hometown, she distances herself from the past and from nearly everyone in it. She marries a quiet man, raises their daughter, Avery, and cares for her tyrannical, ailing mother, Adela.

But when Ginny’s husband, Harris, becomes embroiled in a scandal, Ginny’s carefully controlled life crumbles, and, just when she believes she is regaining her bearings, the secret she’s kept for twenty years emerges and threatens to destroy her hopes for the future.

With the help of fifteen-year-old Avery and of friends both old and new, Ginny must summon the courage to confront old lies and hard truths and to free herself and the people she loves from the mistakes and regrets that have burdened them for so long. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 12, 1966
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Virginia; M.F.A., Sarah Lawrence College; Ph.D., University of Houston
• Currently—lives in Wilmington, Delaware


Marisa de los Santos achieved her earliest success as an award-winning poet, and her work has been published in several literary journals. In 2000, her debut collection, From the Bones Out, appeared as part of the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series.

De los Santos made her first foray into fiction in 2005 with the surprise bestseller Love Walked In. Optioned almost immediately for the movies, this elegant "literary romance" introduced Cornelia Brown, a diminutive, 30-something Philadelphian with a passion for classic film and an unshakable belief in the triumph of true love.

In her 2008 sequel, Belong to Me, de los Santos revisited Cornelia, now a married woman, newly relocated to the suburbs, and struggling to forge friendships with the women in her new hometown.

Her third novel, Falling Together, released in 2011, recounts the reunion of three college friends, whose friendships dissolve as everything they believed about themselves and each other is brought into question.

The Precious One, published in 2015, follows the two half-sisters who meet for the first time as they struggle to please their narcissistic, domineering father.

Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:

• De los Santos' love affair with books began at a young age. She claims to have risked life and limb as a child by insisting on combining reading with such incompatible activities as skating, turning cartwheels, and descending stairs.

• I'm addicted to ballet, completely head-over-heels for it. I did it as a little kid, but took about a thirty year hiatus before starting adult classes. I do it as many times a week as I can, but if I could, I'd do it every day! In my next life, I'm definitely going to be a ballerina.

• I'm terrible with plants, outdoor plants, indoor plants, annuals, perennials. I kill them off in record time. I adore fresh flowers and keep them all over my house all year round because they're beautiful and already dead, but you won't find a single potted plant in my house. So many nice people in the world and in books are growers and gardeners, but the sad truth is that I'll never be one of them.

• I'm an awful sleeper, and the thing that helps me fall asleep or fall back to sleep is reading books from my childhood. Elizabeth Enright's Melendy series and her two Gone Away Lake books, all of the Anne of Green Gables books, Little Women, The Secret Garden, the Narnia books, and a bunch of others. I have probably read some of these books twenty, maybe thirty times. I read them to pieces, literally, and then have to buy new ones.

• I am crazy-scared of sharks and almost never swim in the ocean. Yes, I know it's silly, I know my chances of getting bitten by a shark are about the same as my chances of becoming president of the United States, but I can't help it.

• My favorite way to spend an evening is eating a meal with good friends. The cheese plate, the red wine, the clink of forks, a passel of kids dancing to The Jonas Brothers and laughing their heads off in the next room, food that either I or someone else has cooked with care and love, and warm, lively conversation-give me all this and I'm happy as a clam.

• I adore black and white movies, particularly romantic comedies from the thirties and forties. I love them for the dialogue and for the whip smart, fascinating, fast-talking, funny women.

• When asked what book that most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:

I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was ten, I can't count how many times I've read it since, and every single time, I am utterly pulled in. I don't read it; I live it. I'm with Scout on Boo Radley's porch and in the colored courtroom balcony, and my heart breaks with hers at Tom Robinson's fate. Over and over, the book lifts me up and sets me down into her shoes. I remember the wonder I felt the first time it happened, the sudden, jarring illumination: every person is the center of his or her life the way I am the center of mine. It changed everything. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. That empathy is the greatest gift fiction gives us, and it's the biggest reason I write. (Author bio and interview adapted from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
With Marisa de los Santos’ beautiful descriptions of the settings and her vivid characters who, you’ll feel, are just like your friends growing up, I’d Give Anything is a piece of art.… This book is a wonderful read that will have you falling in love with its characters.
Manhattan Book Review


An engaging story about regrets and second chances.
People


A luminous exploration of wanderlust, friendship, and fire.
Entertainment Weekly


Written in gorgeous prose, I'd Give Anything is a novel about the mistakes we make, and how we can confront them and move forward.
Popsugar


With her signature warmth and wisdom, [de los Santos] explores the ripple effects of that night on Ginny's life…. This story, in true de los Santos fashion, is full of hope and people who are willing to try.
Shelf Awareness


[H]eartfelt…. Thoughtful musings, engaging dialogue, and ironic wit… add to the drama. De los Santos’s seemingly light tale is full of surprises.
Publishers Weekly


[E]exquisitely luxurious, poetic writing [tells] her characters’ stories. She knows exactly where she’s going and how… to get there. The… prose will more than please those who love the thoughtful, precise language of Anne Tyler and Joshilyn Jackson.
Booklist


While there are touching moments,…the protagonists are so flatly drawn that it’s hard to feel much empathy for their dilemmas…. Obvious plot contrivances, clunky, cringeworthy descriptions… also diminish the pleasure. A flawed tale but the author’s devoted fans will devour it.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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From Sand and Ash 
Amy Harmon, 2017
Amazon Publishing
372pp.
ISBN-13: 9781503939325


Summary
Italy, 1943—Germany occupies much of the country, placing the Jewish population in grave danger during World War II.

As children, Eva Rosselli and Angelo Bianco were raised like family but divided by circumstance and religion. As the years go by, the two find themselves falling in love.

But the church calls to Angelo and, despite his deep feelings for Eva, he chooses the priesthood.

Now, more than a decade later, Angelo is a Catholic priest and Eva is a woman with nowhere to turn. With the Gestapo closing in, Angelo hides Eva within the walls of a convent, where Eva discovers she is just one of many Jews being sheltered by the Catholic Church.

But Eva can’t quietly hide, waiting for deliverance, while Angelo risks everything to keep her safe. With the world at war and so many in need, Angelo and Eva face trial after trial, choice after agonizing choice, until fate and fortune finally collide, leaving them with the most difficult decision of all. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Amy Harmon is an American author of more than 10 best selling novels. She has also been a motivational speaker, a singer (with the Emmy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir directed by Gladys Knight), a teacher, and a mother of four.

Harmon grew up in a small town in the state of Nevada, the daughter of two school teachers. She and her siblings had no television (but plenty of wheat fields) so they entertained one another. Amy also turned to her own imagination — reading books (Jane Eyre at 12!) and writing songs and stories.

As an adult, Harmon spent 10 years in Las Vegas, singing, teaching, and raising her family. She taught in a small private school, both elementary and middle school grades. Later she home-schooled her children. Eventually, Harmon moved from writing songs and poetry to writing novels. She ended up self-publishing her first two books in 2012: Running Barefoot (in April) and Slow Dance in Purgatory (in August). Both became bestsellers, as have most of her books. They have been sold in 12 countries around the globe. (From various online sources. Retrieved 5/26/2017.)

Book Reviews
See additional reviews from Amazon customers and on Goodreads.

I just finished and I can't stop crying. From Sand and Ash was phenomenal. The writing was brilliant, the love story was epic, and the depiction of events, gut-wrenching. I had to stop throughout to catch my breath.
Schmexy Girl Book Blog

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Sand and Ash … then take off on your own:

1. Describe the personalities of Eva and Angelo. We see them first as children: what brings them together and forges their years-long bond?

2. How do the new laws change Eva's life and change her relationship with Angelo?

3. Eva's Uncle Felix tells Eva:

They can take our homes, our possessions. Our families. Our lives.… They can humiliate us and dehumanize us. But they cannot take our thoughts. They cannot take our talents. They cannot take our knowledge, or our memories, or our minds.

Those are inspiring words, but do spiritual and intellectual freedom truly compensate for loss of physical freedom? What do you think? If you had to make a choice…?

4. Death and mourning are major themes in the book: what is the significance of the number seven?

5. Talk about Camillo's decision to go to Austria. What is his reasoning?

6. When Angelo returns to Florence, intending to take Eva back to Rome, why does she greet him the way she does?

7. When Nonna Fabia tells Eva that God sees both her and Angelo, Eva thinks to herself, "Either God sees everyone or he sees no one." Talk about that statement—what does Eve mean and why. How do you view her thinking?

8. When the raids begin in Rome, discuss the bravery shown by many of the individuals.

9. How are Angelo's beliefs in God changing, and how does that alter his position as a priesthood, on the inside or outside?

10. What is the significance of dragons in the novel? In Chapter 18, Angelo is warned that he will slay dragons, but not before they slay him. Dragons come up again in the next chapter when Angelo rejoins Eva at the hotel.

11. It takes Greta three days to tell her husband. What would you do in her shoes?

12. In chapter 21, why does no one try to escape? What role does hope play in that decision: do you think hope is powerful enough to make someone cooperate to the very end?

13. In the epilogue, Eva says that she is still a Jew and Angelo still a priest. What does she mean?

14. (Follow-up to Question 13) "There are two things I know for sure. I love you, and no one knows the nature of God." What are your thoughts about Eva's statement?

(Questions adapted from the author's reading guide. See the full guide on the author's website.)

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