“[To be] savored like the dark intensity of Turkish coffee.”
San Francisco Chronicle


Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book, The Virgin's Knot follows the extraordinary life of Nurdane (Noor-dana), the famed weaver of Mavisu. From her remote mountain village in southwestern Turkey, she creates dowries for young brides: dazzling rugs that are marvels of shape and color, texture and light. Her unique rugs possess remarkable healing qualities that have inspired local legend in 1950’s Turkey, but it is her hands that are at the heart of her mystery. An artist’s hands. A virgin’s hands…

“Against a background of stark wartime imagery, Payne laces her tale with poetic musings on the… redemptive power of love.” American Library Association

The Sound of Blue takes readers on an exquisite and soulful journey into a rare part of the world, exploring the healing power of music in the lives of three strangers during the last Balkan War of the 1990s. Sara Foster leaves America for the adventure of a lifetime—teaching English to the elite of Hungary, but ends up teaching in a refugee camp instead and falling in love with one of her students, a celebrated synesthete composer. When he mysteriously disappears from the camp, Sara risks her life to cross into war-torn Croatia…

“Kingdom of Simplicity tells a story about scars, literal and metaphoric… It’s a gem.” Joyce Maynard, bestselling author of Labor Day and To Die For

After being struck by a drunk driver, Holly Payne wrote the award winning novel, Kingdom of Simplicity, based on a true story of forgiveness, which follows the journey of Eli Yoder, a misguided Amish teenager from Pennsylvania who is confronted with forgiving the person who destroyed his family. Winner of the Grand Prize from Writers Digest, First Place Benjamin Franklin Award, a Marin Arts Council Grant, and nominated for a national book award in Belgium, this story has a healing quality that readers have loved.

“Riveting, gorgeous, engrossing! I raced to the end.” Alka Joshi, bestselling author of The Henna Artist

Rose Girl is a spellbinding tale about the mesmerizing girl whose quest to find her mother reconnects the unparalleled poet Rumi to his muse, Shams of Tabriz. Named after the flowering rosa damascena, she grows up in a monastery under a tyrannical monk but flees his wrath and soon develops a mysterious gift‚ turning roses into rose oil and is exploited as a saint for performing miracles. Determined to unburden herself of her servitude, she escapes to 13th century Turkey and meets the beloved Rumi who unlocks the secret of her birth…