Does freedom live in the world, or in the heart?

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Jasmara is twelve, and promised to marry a stranger old enough to be her grandfather.  Her beloved Ni-ne spins tales of adventure and magic and the Goddess Moon, and Jasmara longs for the unbound future Ni-ne has foretold. But Ni-ne is no longer of this world, and with the wedding night fast approaching, Jasmara's destiny will be written by tradition and the needs of the family.

A vast wilderness and slip of ocean away,  Constantinople has fallen to a young Ottoman sultan. The up-ending a thousand years of Byzantine rule is meaningless to Jasmara, until the boy she loves proposes the unthinkable: they will make an escape to the dangerous, newly-minted Istanbul. But their plans go horribly awry.  Jasmara is left for dead, delivered to a luxurious Istanbul guest house , and held captive  by an enigmatic  proprietor.  Trapped in a web of sex and subterfuge, Jasmara must choose between the Byzantine scholar who unexpectedly ignites her spirit, and the historical figure who awakens her desire, the charismatic Ottoman general Mahmud Pasha who holds the fate of the empire in his hands.

A timeless exploration of the ties that bind us and the sacrifices we make in name of love, The Name of the Moon was awarded First Place / Fiction at the San Francisco Writers Conference.