The Ambassador's Wife - Rilegato

"Brilliantly drawn and deeply troubling, Jennifer Steil’s The Ambassador’s Wife is a novel of love, deception and consequences ... Steil, who is herself an ambassador’s wife, skillfully creates Miranda’s milieu: the cobblestone streets of the Old City, the pomegranates and bougainvillea in the hot sun, the snippets of Arabic, the complicated people ... a richly imagined story."
—Seattle Times

“[An] excellent debut novel ... well-crafted, fast-paced, packed with ample suspense to keep the pages turning.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
"A fast-paced novel of marital love and the bonds of women’s friendships against the backdrop of intrigue in the Middle East."
—Booklist

“A beautifully written story of a woman’s life in the fictional Middle Eastern country Mazrooq. As well as being the wife of an ambassador, protagonist Miranda is also an artist, and descriptions of her artistic life signal Steil as a masterful storyteller from the book’s first pages ... The plot complicates when Miranda is brutally kidnapped, turning the sumptuous fish-out-of-water setting into something far more sinister.”
—Nashville Scene

“Thrillingly suspenseful and deeply sensuous ... Steil deftly conducts us into the private and public rooms of the diplomatic world, the complicated aspirations of modern young women living behind the veil, the unfolding of a very private love story—and best of all, into the consciousness of the fiery and idiosyncratic artist who becomes the ambassador’s wife. Captivating, unforgettable.”
—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander
 
“Be warned: once you embark on this hypnotic magic carpet ride of a book, you won't be able to stop. Jennifer Steil is a modern-day Scheherazade, who seamlessly weds lyricism, mystery and a reporter's eye for detail. The Ambassador's Wife is as deeply compassionate as it is thrilling.”
—Jillian Lauren, author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem
 
“In The Ambassador’s Wife, warm-hearted, impetuous Miranda navigates multiple social worlds for the sake of love, art, and survival. Jennifer Steil’s memorable heroine confronts the confines of privilege, the fear of death, the temptations of the white savior complex, and the limits of cross-cultural connection in this detailed, thoughtful debut.”
—Joy Castro, author of Island of Bones
 
“The Ambassador’s Wife illuminates a very intimate, and feminine, face of terror. Jennifer Steil has lived among artists, journalists, diplomats, and women desiring empowerment in one of the most terror-ridden corners of the Middle East. This is a story only she can tell, and she does so with great clarity, phenomenal insight, and wondrous grace. The rarest of books, this is a thriller about the heart. ”
—Moira Crone, author of The Ice Garden and The Not Yet
 
“An extraordinarily timely tale, completely gripping, and particularly so when read against the daily horror stories in the news. So much of the background, too, was familiar to me as a diplomat’s wife. I loved the book. I wish I had written it!”
—Brigid Keenan, author of Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse