Indies Introduce

Fiction

• 
  Cairo Circles, Doma Mahmoud
  Unnamed Press, 9781951213367, October 12, 2021 (Fiction)
  

  “Sheero, a lapsed Muslim in NYC, is living a hedonistic life when everything changes. He's taken in for questioning because his estranged cousin committed a terrorist act in the city. From there, the story spirals out in circles as Sheero, his friends and family, and all their lives intersect. I gobbled this up in two sittings.”

  Audrey Huang, Belmont Books, Belmont, MA
  
  

  “Every so often an author is just as good at plotting as they are at developing characters. Mahmoud has crafted a beast of a novel with woven points of view, topics that matter, and enough heart to bring on the feels. I can only hope that this debut is just the beginning.”

  Carrie Koepke, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, MO
  

  “How can we figuratively and literally go home again once we've expanded our circles? How do we reconcile our inner states and desires with those projected upon us by society and family? In Cairo Circles, Doma Mahmoud gracefully explores how expectations — socioeconomic, cultural, emotional — both separate and bring us together, how our circles are both cuttingly drawn and ineffably fluid, intersecting and refracting, creating complex new geometries of being. Mahmoud manifests these soul-jostlings through a cast of characters rendered with incisive sympathy, beauty, and humor — compelling, real characters that linger long after the last page.”

  Amanda Qassar, Warwick’s, La Jolla, CA