Eman Quotah's debut novel, Bride of the Sea, won the Arab American Book Award for fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, and many other publications. She lives outside Washington, DC, with her family.
Quotah paints us a world that feels ripe for the taking, much like the flowers that make up Layla's perfumes, but also foreign and warped. The work done here is complex, heartfelt, and painful at times. I feel like I grew up alongside Layla, understood and was understood by her struggles at every turn. This is a book that I will return to time and time again, particularly when the world feels vibrant and violent. -- MEGAN BONTRAGER, author of The Sea Hides Its Dead