Join us in welcoming Joanne Leedom-Ackerman author of “The Far Side of the Desert”. Copies are available for purchase and signing.
In her fiction, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman draws on her work as a journalist and an executive for PEN International, which has taken her all over the world, including the Middle East and North Africa, and given her insights into culture and politics, human rights issues, and global tensions. In her latest novel The Far Side of the Desert (Oceanview Publishing, March 5, 2024), the award-winning writer follows the fates of two sisters—one, a US foreign service officer; the other, an international television correspondent—after their lives are shattered by a terrorist attack and the personal toll of its aftermath.
Monte, the youngest of the three Waters children, followed in their father’s footsteps and was building a career in the Foreign Service, aspiring to reach the pinnacle he never achieved: National Security Advisor or Ambassador at the United Nations. Her sister, Samantha, and their big brother, Cal, were too prone to adventure, too defiant, to move from embassy to embassy working in the government bureaucracy. Now, at thirty-seven, with two children and hints of gray at her temples, Monte is resigned to going wherever she’s told to keep doing an impossible job—monitoring insurgent movements—and placating her accountant husband so he’ll keep following her. In her worst moments, she’s envious of her sister, who, at almost forty and still single, is a reporter with International News Network (INN), and gets noticed for her stunning looks as well as her breaking news stories.
Moving from Spain to Washington to Morocco to Gibraltar to the desolate Sahara, The Far Side of the Desert unravels an intricate plot involving terrorism, money laundering, and the manipulation of financial markets to the disadvantage of the US economy. At its head is a shadowy, dangerous figure known as the Elder and a financial genius with an ulterior motive, alternately known as Safir Brahim, his Moroccan name, and his birth name, Stephen Oroya. But why was Monte kidnapped? And why doesn’t anyone seem to be negotiating for her release?
About the author:
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist whose works of fiction include Burning Distance, The Dark Path to the River, and No Marble Angels. Her recent nonfiction book, PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line, drew inspiration from her job as a vice president of the worldwide writers and human rights organization, PEN International. She is also on the boards of American Writers Museum, the International Center for Journalists, Words Without Borders, and Refugees International, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Texas Institute of Letters. A native of Dallas, she has lived in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and Washington, DC
Author Joanne Leedom-Ackerman will be signing books purchased at the Palm Beach Book Store.
RSVPs are encouraged but not required.