Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of 30 years of Afghanistan history and a deeply moving story of family friendship faith and the salvation to be found in love. Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever-escalating dangers around them in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense Hosseini shows how a womans love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice and that in the end it is love or even the memory of love that is often the key to survival