In this collection the author takes us on three journeys.In one, a young man paddles off across the lake to escape the pain that's erupted in his family. But he discovers that the pain comes with him, and he must take an honest look at himself in order to deal with it.In the second, we join a traveller as he takes a day trip up into the mountains of an exotic island. In his attempt to visit a friend, he is invited in by a poor man living in a tiny stone hut. Can the outsider ...

This is the cautionary tale of Rashad Stevens. He finds himself in a troubled Cairo during the infamous protests aimed at rallying what was left of the European and Mediterranean nations against their alien conquerors. Turbulent times. Despair is catching; poverty is killing.Rashad and his Egyptian friend Hany are undecided: should they invest what little they have in a huge alien-run scheme to green the Sahara? Or trust their lives and their savings into the hands of the people sm...

Long, long ago in a land at the edge of a desert that howls against the walls of the village, a poor young boy named Samir is sent to work for a strange old man who stays up all night listening to the stars. In his curiosity to find out why, Samir stumbles upon a secret and is swept up in an epic journey across the ancient world. It is up to him and his brother Hamdan - with a lot of help from Munira, the camel - to deliver a very special treasure to a king and perhaps rescue their land fr...

It seems like any other day in the e-office for Private Investigator Ghamdan Shamiri. An embattled worker needs legal leverage, claiming he's been framed: that kind of ordinary. Then he's hired by Helena Szychter, poker-faced agent for a murder victim's father.Before the morning's out he and she are hot on the trail of a man who witnessed the murder, a man so afraid of the alleged murderer that he appears to have taken on the identity of a convicted criminal so he could be transpor...