The Ambassador's Wife: A Novel [Paperback]

When bohemian artist Miranda meets British ambassador Finn in the ancient stone streets of an Islamic city, the course of her life alters in extraordinary ways. Their marriage gives her the luxury to paint whenever she wants, a staff to wait on her, and a young daughter she adores, but she loses the freedom to wander where she likes and to meet the Muslim women she is secretly teaching to paint. Her husband also makes Miranda a target: One sunny afternoon while hiking in the mountains, she is brutally kidnapped.
 
As Finn struggles to save his family and his career, and Miranda grows close to a stranger’s child in captivity, the secrets he and Miranda have each sought to hide place them and those who trust them in peril. Not even freedom could restore the happiness that once was theirs.

“A novel of love, deception and consequences. . . . Richly imagined. . . . Harrowing and brilliant.”
     —The Seattle Times

“Thrillingly suspenseful and deeply sensuous. . . . Steil deftly conducts us into the private and public rooms of the diplomatic world, the complicated aspirations of modern young women living behind the veil, the unfolding of a very private love story—and best of all, into the consciousness of the fiery and idiosyncratic artist who becomes the ambassador’s wife. Captivating, unforgettable.”
     —Janet Fitch, author ofWhite Oleander
 
“Cultural binaries fuel this well-plotted, gripping novel.
     —The New York Times Book Review

“Beautifully written. . . . Descriptions of [Miranda’s] artistic life signal Steil as a masterful storyteller from the book’s first pages.”
     —Nashville Scene

“A multilayered novel that provokes discussion but also entertains.”
     —Pittsburgh lĂ&