here is the first thing you need to know about me im a barefoot girl from reddirt oklahoma and all the marble floors in the world will never change thathere is the second thing that young woman they pulled from the arabian shore her hair tangled with mangrovemy husband didnt kill her not the way they say he did 1967 gin mitchell knows a better life awaits her when she marries hometown hero mason mcphee raised in a tworoom shack by her oklahoma grandfather a strict methodist minister gin never believed that someone like mason a handsome college boy the pride of shawnee would look her way and nothing can prepare her for the world she and mason step into when he takes a job with the arabian american oil company in saudi arabia in the gated compound of abqaiq gin and mason are given a home with marble floors a houseboy to cook their meals and a gardener to tend the sandy patch out back even among the veiled women and strict laws of shariah gins life has become the stuff of fairy tales she buys her first swimsuit she pierces her ears and mason gives her a glittering diamond ring but when a young bedouin woman is found dead washed up on the shores of the persian gulf gins world closes in around her and the one person she trusts is nowhere to be found set against the gorgeously etched landscape of a country on the cusp of enormous change in the kingdom of men abounds with sandstorms and locust swarms shrimp peddlers pearl divers and bedouin caravansa luminous portrait of life in the desert awardwinning author kim barnes weaves a mesmerizing richly imagined tale of americans out of their depth in saudi arabia a marriage in peril and one womans quest for the truth no matter what it might cost her