Verse in Arabic

A novella set in the hauntings of your mind

Overview

A respected physician in Cordoba, Spain, receives a mysterious phone call—a request to attend to the ailing daughter of a wealthy but secretive family in Madrid. What seems to be a routine house call quickly turns into a disturbing labyrinth of intrigue and mystery, and a fight for the girl’s life.

The outcome of that battle will impact the doctor—and the journalist interviewing him—in ways neither imagined.

Set against the unstable political climate of General Franco’s Spain in the 1940’s and based on a bizarre real-life incident that remains unsolved to this day, Verse in Arabic twists medical ethics and psychosocial tyranny into a cord that pulls at your heart from both ends. 

Honors

Verse in Arabic was named a finalist in the 2013 Press 53 Open Awards.

Book info

Genre: Psychological thriller / Literary fiction

Page count: 102 pages

Price: $7.95

All print copies purchased directly from the publisher come with a free eBook.

Amazon has it too. But it won’t give you a free eBook.

Praise

It’s been a few years since I was as delighted with a book—I think it was “Shadow of the Wind”—that I couldn’t put down. So masterful is Rasine’s narrative that she guides you through the dauntingly undramatic occasion of an interview as though it were riveting drama because the mystery and intrigue are manufactured by sheer brilliance of style and sensitivity as though you were reading the best of Jorge Luis Borges.

I truly can’t wait to read more from this provocative author whose poetically authoritative voice is worthy of the highest echelons of literature. Bravo!

— Dr. Kenneth Atchity
Author of “The Messiah Matrix,” and founder of The Story Merchant 

No ending will suffice for a mystery that will remain in the reader’s mind as a companion long after the last page. The author wants you as an accomplice, and succeeds masterfully. Madrid, medicine, innocence and crime, tall verse written for your pleasure by this brilliant author.  Shokran!  

— Isabel Campoy
Author and former Senior Editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Birgitte Rasine’s mysterious Verse in Arabic pulled me in and held me from beginning to end. Beautifully written, this story demonstrates that Rasine is an uncommonly gifted writer.  

— Don Thompson
Author, playwright, and film producer

I don’t like mysteries. I lose interest quickly and if I persevere to the end, I am almost always disappointed. Birgitte Rasine has taught me a lesson with her artfully and hypnotically composed Verse in Arabic. Based on a real life story that haunted her for decades, this is a book that defies many of the conventional “rules” of fiction writing.

Rasine is a master wordsmith, whose prose is graceful and poetic, yet efficient and, for that reason, effective. Every word counts, and you’ll hang on every word as well.  

— Cynthia Dagnal-Myron
Author and award-winning former journalist for the Chicago Sun Times

[Verse in Arabic] is ... the kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

— Bill Thompson
Radio journalist and host, The Bookcast