* A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2019 *

* SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 *

* LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2019 *

'BIRD SUMMONS is a magic carpet ride into the forest of history and the lives of women. Deep and wild' Lucy Ellmann, Booker-shortlisted author of DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT

Salma, happily married, tries every day to fit into life in Britain. When her first love contacts her, she is tempted to risk it all and return to Egypt.

Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son, but now her husband wants to move to Saudi Arabia - where she fears her son's condition will worsen.

Iman feels burdened by her beauty. In her twenties and already in her third marriage, she is treated like a pet and longs for freedom.

On a road trip to the Scottish Highlands, the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird whose fables from Muslim and Celtic literature compel them to question the balance between faith and femininity, love, loyalty and sacrifice.

Brilliantly imagined, intense and haunting, Bird Summons confirms Leila Aboulela's reputation as one of our finest contemporary writers.

"Aboulela is doing much the same thing as Jane Austen did when she brought her heroines to the point of examining their feelings honestly and so realising who they should marry and on what terms. Aboulela does this very well, and always (which is just as important) interestingly ... a very good novel" - THE SCOTSMAN

"Tender, but unsentimental . . . rooted in everyday experience without forsaking the spiritual, told in effortlessly enjoyable style'" - DAILY MAIL

"She's so good with women's interiority, and Muslim women's subjectivity ... she gets beyond any cliché or type of the Muslim women" - BBC Radio 4, Front Row

"Aboulela's prose is restrained but warm. There is a calm amusement in her tone when the women mock the overly conservative men in their lives . . .For western readers, Aboulela offers rare and precious insight into the minds of women who believe that husbands should be obeyed - Moni's dogged devotion to the care of her disabled son, which is tenderly described early in the novel, is viewed by her friends as a betrayal of her marriage vows" - GUARDIAN