Author(s): Suzanne Salem

Fiction

Could moving to a crumbling Australian coastal town mean giving up your only dream? In 1974, Nayeema reluctantly leaving Sydney's inner city to move to Burraboo, a tired coastal town, with her husband, Fawzy. In doing so, Nayeema surrenders her only dream but once in Burraboo, she falls under the sway of new infatuations. On a houseboat in the pristine bay nearby, she sells the comforting food of her Egyptian childhood; and learns how the truth can be withheld in secrets. But everything changes when a local teenage girl goes missing and racial tensions ignite in the town. As Nayeema's houseboat arrangements become more entangled, her yearnings must fight her own history, the impetuous jinn and each other, to finally reveal the mystery of the strange birthmark that prickles on her chest.