Kartography — Kamila Shamsie

A “gorgeous novel” of two upper-class Pakistani families and the complicated love that develops between their children, by the author of Home Fire (Los Angeles Times).

Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to one another's partners, until they rematched in what they call “the fiancée swap.” But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family's turbulent history, but also a country's -- and now a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love.
 
A love story with a family mystery at its heart, from an author named as one of the Orange Prize's “21 Writers for the 21st Century,” Kartography transports readers to a world not often seen in fiction: vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan.
 
“[Shamsie] has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book, about childhood, love, life and high society in Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the prepublication fuss.” -- Harper's Bazaar
 
“[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence.” -- San Francisco Chronicle
 
“E. M. Forster's famous plea -- ‘only connect' -- reverberates passionately throughout this forceful tale of childhood, love and the power of story-telling.” -- The Independent (UK)
 
“Deftly woven, provocative . . . Shamsie's blistering humor and ear for dialogue scorches through [a] whirl of whiskey and witticisms.” -- The Observer (UK)
 
“A shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story . . . Rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“Its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another . . . echoes Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things.” -- Kirkus Reviews