KARTOGRAPHY

Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi.

Their parents were even once engaged to each others'' partners until they rematched in what they call "the fiance swap." But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents'' exchange.

What she uncovers reveals not just a family''s but a country''s turbulent history-and a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love.

A love story with a family mystery at its heart, Kartography is a dazzling novel by a young writer of astonishing maturity and exhilarating style. Shamsie transports us to a world we have not often seen in fiction-vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan.

But even as she takes us far from the familiar, her story of passion and family secrets rings universally true.