12/24/2022 0 Comments Just gold deeper voice![]() Nevertheless, I stand on unsteady legs as Dr. I close my eyes, trying to hold on to his words, trying to believe them but each time I try to catch the letters, they vanish from my grasp. “Your life is just as important as theirs,” he interrupts, his voice leaving no room for negotiation. Though he tries his best to take care of my health, not letting me exceed my limits. And a small part of me, a very small one, begrudges him for it. Witness the horror and still come back the next day. To drench my hands in the blood of innocents and push it back into their bodies. I also know he’d never ask of her what he expects of me every day. I know one of his daughters is my age and that he sees her in me. ![]() Over these past seven months, he’s become a father figure to me. My hands fall to my lap as I process what he’s saying. “You’ve lost more than anyoneĮver should. Especially someone as young as you are.” His glance softens. No one should have to handle this horror. If you’re drained and in pain, you won’t be able to help anyone. I press my hands to my own lips, begging them to stop trembling. I tear my eyes away from the small faces with purple, bruised lips to meet his eyes. Ziad crouches beside me, his kind face weathered with pain. Even Layla had a very near miss in October now she’s not allowed to leave the house. Ziad that, early on, the military would target them for sport. The snipers’ victims are always the innocents who can’t fight back. The girls look about seven, clothes torn, knees scraped. Military snipers take to the roofs at the borders between the military’s posts and the Free Syrian Army’s protected zones. Two little girls lay motionless before me, bullet holes ripped through their throats. Knees as I rock back and forth, shaking and crying, trying to soothe myself. When Dr Ziad finds me, I’m on the floor in the corner of one of the recovery rooms, clutching my Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are-not a war, but a revolution-and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria’s freedom. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. ![]() So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe.īut even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. She still had her parents and her big brother she still had her home. Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt in both written and audiobook formats from Zoulfa Katouh’s As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow, which is out September 13th 2022. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief and Salt to the Sea. A love letter to Syria and its people, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, burning with the fires of hope, love, and possibility. ![]()
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