The Salt Road

When Isabelle’s estranged father dies he leaves her the house she grew up in, in the attic of which lies a mysterious box with her name on it. Inside the box are three items: an archaeological paper about an ancient Saharan queen, a faded piece of paper written in what appears to be in Arabic, and a curious piece of antique silver: an amulet.

The Salt Road

Publishing end August 2011

In another place and time, Mariata belongs to a desert tribe which traces its roots back to Tin Hinan, founding queen of the Tuareg, the legendary Blue Men of the Sahara. She meets and falls in love with Amastan, a charismatic and damaged young warrior. But when her father takes a new wife who has no wish to live the nomad life he takes Mariata to settle in a town in south Morocco. Mariata hates her new existence; and when her stepmother plots to marry her off to a detested suitor, she decides to follow in the steps of her ancestress and make an epic solo journey a thousand miles into the desert in search of her lost love.

Separated by different times and cultures, the lives of Izzy and Mariata are about to become fatally entwined.

Izzy discovers that her amulet is a Tuareg artefact containing an inscription in Tifinagh, a language of the ancient world used for poetry and magic, understood now only by nomads in the deep desert. The desert routes once travelled by caravans of camels bearing ivory, gold and salt are now more perilous than ever but Isobel must follow them if she is ever to lay her ghosts to rest.

Out in the magnificent wastes of the Sahara she will find more than she ever dreamed: not only the answer to her mysterious inheritance, but a romance as grand and sweeping as the desert itself…

  • Publication Date: end August 2010 [UK]
  • Current Formats: Trade paperback [UK]
  • Published By: Viking (UK)
  • Order from Amazon.co.uk

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Non-English Language editions

Crossed Bones/The Tenth Gift and The Salt Road are also sold in the following overseas markets (click the links, where available, to visit the publisher’s website for more information).