The Palace of Angels

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NSW PREMIERS LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION 2020 AUSTRALIA SHORTLISTED FOR THE VOSS LITERARY AWARD 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE VOSS LITERARY AWARD 2020 ​Interwoven in the anguish and trauma of Palestine, is a cross-border romance of ineffable charm – served equally with the remorseless realism of war and the bare-skinned surrender of two young warriors who break the rules because: what rules? He, a Palestinian and she, an Israeli soldier – confront the tyrannies of power – political, religious, and personal. Their prisons of repression and arrogant delusion break open the aphorism: ‘To birds born caged, flying is a crime.’ There is no judgement, purely the exposition: Do I question my inherited viewpoint, or do I reach for the ideal? In a surge of almost giddying prose that pulls us page-by-page, questioning our values in a fever of anticipation the sequel strings though the twenty two years that bring forth the dichotomy between love and the lifetime-punishment of war. What do we ultimately become when we are bereft of hope? In a grappling prequel, three young zealots risk their lives in a dubious exchange of Egyptian hashish for Israeli guns - with renegade soldiers to whom trigger-murder was little more than a whim. Are we really prepared to pay the price for what we believe in? This trilogy of novels begins with the reckless urge of idealism, it traverses the personal narrative rarely heard and closes with a finale that any lover would applaud.