Book Review: Veiled Freedom

Written by Jeanette Windle 
Reviewed by K.M. Daughters 

Idealistic relief worker Amy Mallory arrives in Kabul ready to change the world. She soon discovers that as a woman in Afghanistan, the challenges she faces are monumental.  As the new security chief to the Minister of the Interior, former Special Forces veteran Steve Wilson is disillusioned to find that the country he fought to set free has fallen into its old habits of greed and corruption.  Afghani native Jamil returns to his homeland seeking a job while his painful past continues to haunt him.  All three search for truth and for freedom.  But at what cost?

VEILED FREEDOM propelled me into the reality of international headlines so stark and eye opening that at times it took my breath away.  The read is an immersion in contemporary Afghanistan, so sensory an experience, I could almost taste caustic fumes on my tongue, suffocate under the oppressive burka and choke in the smoke of a suicide bomb’s aftermath.  No easy answers in this political landscape, as the sometimes naïve heroine, Amy, soon learns.  Armed with her innate goodness and clinging to her Bible, Amy is determined to make a difference under the banner of her “New Hope” agency.  Steve “Willie” Wilson is unforgettably jaded in his new private security role after his stint in Special Forces “liberated” the country and his idealism died.  What difference did it make that an army brought land of the free tenets to the country?  Sharia law and rampant corruption quelled any true freedom as Willie sees it.  And he’s not far wrong.  Even a good Christian woman like Amy can’t whole-heartedly refute his logic after setbacks and the long string of cultural taboos mount.

The obscure historic interconnection between the three principal characters and the intrigues that tie up their pasts in the end, hooked me and kept the pages turning faster and faster.  What starts as a glimmer of hopeful possibility – that three essentially God-centered people, starkly different in every other way might find freedom in this oppressive world – simmers, teases and eventually blazes into startling truth – love wins, God prevails, faith heals.  The only freedom no matter where you stand on earth lies in placing your life in God’s hands.  Jamil’s stunning conversion supplies freedom’s most essential definition from the lips of Isa Masih, Jesus Christ, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

I strongly recommend this vividly descriptive and politically provocative book.  As the author expresses in her dedication, “To those…who offer yourselves unhesitatingly as hands and feet and heart of Isa Masih to shine the light of his love into dark places,” VEILED FREEDOM succeeds in doing just that.

Favorite – the character, Jamil
Least Favorite – mudding acronyms abound

K.M. Daughters is multi-published sister writing team.  Jewel of the Adriatic is a featured book in The Great Escape 2009. You can out more about this writing team at http://www.kmdaughters.com.