Pact We Made The

Featured on BBC Radio 4sOpen Book• Featured on BBC Radio 3sFree Thinking• AnELLEMagazine cultural pick • Reviewed in theObserver Beautifully written Joanna Cannon
Fascinating … full of personalityGuardian
Brilliant … What a debut Pandora Sykes How could I explain to her that nothing in my life felt real? That in a country like Kuwait, where everyone knew everything about each other, the most monumental thing to ever happen to me was buried and covered over? For the sake of my reputation, my future, my sisters and cousins; the family honor sat on my little shoulders, so no-one could ever know. Dahlia has two lives. In one, she is a young woman with a good job, great friends and a busy social life. In the other, she is an unmarried daughter living at home, struggling with a burgeoning anxiety disorder and a deeply buried secret: a violent betrayal too shameful to speak of. With her thirtieth birthday fast-approaching, pressure from her mother to accept a marriage proposal begins to strain the family.As her two lives start to collide and fracture, all Dahlia can think of is escape: something that seems impossible when she cant even leave the country without her fathers consent. But what if Dahlia does have a choice? What if all she needs is the courage to makeit? Set in contemporary Kuwait, The Pact We Made is a deeply affecting and timely debut about family, secrets and one womans search for a different life.