Author: Roberta Gately
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
About the book: Newly heartbroken and searching for purpose in her life, Abby Monroe is determined to make her mark as a UN worker in one of the world's most unstable cities: Peshawar, Pakistan. But after witnessing the brutal murder of a woman thrown from a building, she is haunted by the memory of an intricate and sparkling bracelet that adorned the victim's wrist.
At a local women's shelter, Abby meets former sex slaves who have miraculously escaped their captors. As she gains the girls' trust and documents their horrifying accounts of unspeakable pain and betrayal, she joins forces with a dashing New York Times reporter who believes he can incriminate the shadowy leader of the vicious human trafficking ring. Inspired by the women's remarkable bravery -- and the mysterious reappearance of the bracelet -- the duo traces evidence that spreads from remote villages of South Asia to the most powerful corners of the West, risking their lives to offer a voice to the countless innocents in bondage.
Browse inside The Bracelet
My thoughts: This book was fascinating and tragic at the same time. It gave me a look inside the world of human trafficking at a time when my local church is getting involved in a local program dealing with human trafficking. It is really scary to me to think that there may be women in my own community who are trafficking victims - but that is a story for antoher day - back to The Bracelet.
Abby chose to go to Peshawar to get away from a broken heart and an unsatisfying job. She wasn't really thinking about where she was going, but what she was running from. When she sees a woman fall from a balcony in Geneva on her way to Peshawar, she has no way of knowing what that even will come to mean to her, but it is really just foreshadowing the events that she will experience in Pakistan.
She is pretty timid at first, pretty introverted, visiting the camp but not really stepping out side the boundaries she has erected for herself. As she gets to know the women though, her compassion comes to the forefront and she really starts to relate to them and goes out of her way to befriend them. Abby does not really understand how Najeela, an Afghan woman who works in the UN house that Abby lives in, does not want to do more for these women. Najeela is just concerned with what her European boyfriend can give her in the way of jewelry, and how she is going to get past her father's objections when she announces that she wants to marry him.
Nick, a journalist who comes to Pakistan to do an article on Abby, also helps to push Abby out of her comfort zone. Abby is determined not to cooperate with him, because she does not want to be the subject of an article. But like with the women in the camp, her carefully constructed walls start to come down and soon her and Nick have stumbled upon some key players in the trafficking world.
LIke I said in the beginning, this was a fascinating read but the tragedy that is happening both here and all over the world is horrifying. It was quick paced and really kept me glued to the pages. I would highly recomment this one if you are looking for chick lit with a little soul.
~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Simon and Schuster in exchange for my unbiased review.~
