The Woman at the Well--vol. 1

ISBN-13-9781936940103

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"Chamberlin (Gloria, 2005, etc.) breathes life into the ancient Arabic world in this epic historical novel of one girl's tumultuous search to discover her past ... Impeccable research and haunting, poetic language create a lush tale to be lingered over and savored."

-- Kirkus Reviews

"The Woman at the Well is an excellent historical novel–well written, well edited, and quite lyrical–and it is a contemporary novel giving insight into the history of Islam...I recommend this novel to anyone interested in gaining more understanding about Islam and the world today. "-- Kaye Trout Reviews

"I'm so pleased to bring you this interview with internationally bestselling author Ann Chamberlin. Ann's historical novels span a wide range of settings, from ancient Israel to medieval France to the harems of the 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman Empire.  Her latest book, The Woman at the Well, is an epic literary work that will introduce most readers to a new and unfamiliar place: 7th-century Arabia during the first years of Islam and the time slightly before."

--Sarah Johnson, Reading the Past

"Chamberlin ... breathes life into the ancient Arabic world..."

-- Super E-Books.com

"This remarkable tale of love, family and perseverance is richly rewarding on every level: storytelling at its finest." Five Stars!  -- Indie Reader

"Chamberlin breathes life into the ancient Arabic world in this epic historical novel of one girl's tumultuous search to discover her past ... Impeccable research and haunting, poetic language create a lush tale to be lingered over and savored." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Chamberlain’s dramatic tale gives great insight into daily life, war, and the powerful role women played in seventh Century Middle East culture."  -- Renaissance Magazine

An Excerpt from The Woman at the Well:

For one dreadful moment, everyone in the courtyard was as limp as the little victim, unable to move, their shrieks lingering over them like the souls of unplacated jinn. Then, horror exploded in half a dozen different, desperate acts all around the little girl, who remained unnaturally white and still. Rayah’s act was to kneel beside her cousin. She felt for life in the neck and couldn’t find it. The puddle of water was already growing pink, Bushra’s small face even paler in contrast.

Demiella jumped down from the fountain’s coping and came to kneel, too. “She’s dead.” Her voice was thin with hopeless guilt.

For her part, when she found the repeated call of Bushra’s name had no effect, Rayah began a chant of “Ya Latif, ya Latif, O Sensitive One,” over and over. This was one of the Ninety-Nine Names of Allah that Sitt Umm Ali had taught her students, the Name best to call on in times of hopelessness.

Auntie Adilah had run for Bushra’s mother and the other older women, resting in the shade of their arbor, but they had already heard the courtyard’s change of sound, the loud silence of death.

Bushra’s mother set up an inhuman wail as she flew across the court, threatening to slip as her daughter had done. Grownups reached for Rayah, to pull her out of the way. But she had her hand beneath the little girl’s head where, under the fine, dark hair, she felt the spot soft as a damp loofah.

“Ya Latif, ya Latif,” she sobbed and prepared to move away when she felt the strangest sensation under her fingers. Actually, it came through her fingers, centered upon the holy Name of God. Energy twitched, and the pieces of skull, like bits of broken eggshell beneath the skin, began to shift back into place.

Glued to her little cousin with blood, Rayah didn’t dare remove her hand, even though she trembled from head to foot. Her teeth chattered, and she had to repeat the prayer with her jaw clenched. The water dripping from her hair and clothes might have been thrown on her in mid-winter. Her eyes, her eyes were the worst. She squeezed them closed against needles of pain.

The pieces of skull swam, then locked, fused together like hot wax, smoothed. The tingling energy, the miracle, stopped.

What was happening? Rayah gasped with fear. What unearthly power was this? It couldn’t be her doing—she just a child herself. She tried to pull away.

And Bushra moved with a choking whimper.

“Ah God, ah God, she’s alive,” the child’s mother cried and caught the little body up in her arms to carry her to the best cushions under the arbor.

“Sitt Sameh will know what to do, God willing. Has somebody gone for Sitt Sameh?” Demiella asked, trying to brush away tears with a corner of her already damp sleeve.

But Sitt Sameh didn’t need to be fetched. She must have heard the silence of death, too, and stood on the stairs that ran down into the courtyard from the roof and her aerie. Her brow bunched around the blue-black tattoos of a desert tribe etched in the skin there, the ring in her nose held still. She stood just at the shadowy bend, Rayah noticed, where the cousins always said dark jinn hid.

Rayah looked away, but not before she felt that uncomfortable cool blue gaze—seeming blind and yet all-seeing both at once. The eyes rested, not where little Bushra had been borne, but on Rayah herself.