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 the Goddess Moon, and Jasmara longs for the magical, 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 brothel, and held captive  by an enigmatic  proprietor.  Trapped in a web of sex and subterfuge, Jasmara must navigate the harsh realities of her new world to win the favor of a Byzantine scholar who unexpectedly ignites her spirit, and the charismatic Ottoman general who awakens her desire,  the historical figure Mahmud Pasha, who holds the fate of the empire in his hands.

THE NAME OF THE MOON

A Novel

First Place Prize / Fiction Manuscript / San Francisco Writers Conference