Sparks Like Stars

 by Nadia Hashimi

This books is about a young girl whose entire family is killed when they are at the Presidential palace in Kabul when there is a coup.  The girl's father had been a senior advisor to the President.

The girl is found alive and is taken away from the palace by one of the guards, a guard she believes executed her family.  He keeps her locked up at his home but eventually takes her to the home of an American diplomat.  The diplomat and her mother try to figure out how to get the girl out of Afghanistan.  They believe that if the leaders of the coup find out she is alive they will try to kill her.

They decide that the girl will take on the name of her deceased sister.  This sister was born when the parents were studying in the U.S.  They feel this will be an easier case to sell.  While the diplomat is doing her best to convince officials to save the girl, the diplomats mother convinces some Americans who are passing through Afghanistan to take her and the girl to Pakistan.  They make their way to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan but not after being in a vehicle accident on a treacherous road.  The U.S. officials are skeptical even after hearing from the diplomat.  But when the Pakistan embassy is under attack the old woman and girl are able to get on a flight to the U.S.

The girl is put in a horrible foster home.  She is traumatized by what she has been through and wants to know what happened to her parents.  She keeps asking to see the old woman but eventually learns that the old woman has died, possibly because of injuries from the crash.  The diplomat eventually adopts the girl and they travel around the world because of jobs in the diplomatic service.  The girl eventually returns to the U.S. and becomes a successful surgeon.

The girl has a boyfriend, she has never been able to tell him the full story of her life. When he announces he has political aspirations and wants her to marry him she realizes she cannot make that kind of commitment and breaks off with him.  She realizes politics will always be foremost in everything he does including having a non-white wife, a successful surgeon,

She is shocked one day when the soldier who kidnapped her and who she thinks killed her parents comes to her for treatment for cancer.  She keeps asking him what happened and he finally tells her that he did not kill her parents and instructed a soldier to bury them on a hill where they would have av view,

News comes out that some graves have been located in Afghanistan which are believed to hold the remains of the murdered President and his family.  The girl convinces her mother and a journalist who has written books about Afghanistan to go back with her.  She pushes her way in to see officials in the Ministry of Interior who tell her that the remains are only the president and his family.  She is about to leave dejected when she recalls that there were trees and a hill near the prison where the other remains were found.  She convinces the government officials to try digging on the hill and they find the remains of her family.  She is finally able to lay them to rest, and it appears that she now may be able tl let herself love someone, the journalist.

Parts of the book were very distressing but it was a very well written and interesting story.  This is another author for which I will be looking for previous books.