A love story that plays out in a refugee camp? It doesn’t sound like your run-of-the-mill romance novel, right? WHEN THE MOON IS LOW by Nadia Hashimi is not an average passion and ardor played out against shiny skies and warm winds. The terrors of the post-Taliban Middle East life are such that the matinee dreams of happily-ever-after take on all the shrapnel-edged anxieties and nightmares of this generation of fleeing war refugees.

Mahmoud and his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, share a devotion far greater than any love either of them has ever known. But then the quiet, middle-class world in which they begin their life together --- filled with education, hard work and material comfort --- literally blows up as the Taliban comes to power. Civil engineer Mahmoud is murdered. Fereiba is on the run with three children in tow in order to cross Europe for the safety of her sister's family in England. When she takes forged documents and makes a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness, she finds help as far as Greece. There, her life once again turns to the dark side as her young son disappears in a marketplace.

"WHEN THE MOON IS LOW is a beautifully rendered novel with fully wrought characters and the dramatic backdrop of a world gone insane. It’s a tale for our times and a much more emotional way to look at the state of the world than any bland newspaper reporting could present."

Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby as Saleem falls in with the underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Mother and son strive to find their way back to each other, and their insistent grip on a better future drives them forward into a world that shows no signs of giving them a break and reuniting them. But their dogged determination is contagious and brightens the readers’ experience of their darker times.

The love that Fereiba exhibits for her son is a masterful stroke of compelling narrative from Hashimi, and the dire and desperate world in which her characters live is so visceral that, at times, readers will find themselves gasping for air. If I were to make this book into a movie, I would hire John Williams to write its soundtrack: a combination of high drama and extreme wistful longing. The palpable sense of loss inherent in Fereiba’s story is devastating, but her indefatigable belief in better things and a better life with all her children is something that every reader will find hard to resist and even harder to put down once they have started to invest in the story.

I particularly liked the story of Saleem, the way in which this young teen finds a strength that is clearly passed down from his mother and uses it to survive in a harsh environment (an environment that even finds time for him to discover his own version of young passion, giving him further energy to work out of his hardship and find solace with his family).

WHEN THE MOON IS LOW is a beautifully rendered novel with fully wrought characters and the dramatic backdrop of a world gone insane. It’s a tale for our times and a much more emotional way to look at the state of the world than any bland newspaper reporting could present. Hashimi is on her way to becoming a great historical fiction writer, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.