Review: Okay to setup a trilogy; too many open plot items to stand alone
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2012
This is a short novella (more of a short story than a novella) about Amarrah and her desire to retrieve an old box she was given for safekeeping that was stolen from her 10 years earlier.  The story starts off with Amarrah at 13 in Iraq when she received the box from her Grandmother and we then see it get taken from her.  The story picks up 10 years later when she sees the box on TV.  She tracks down the box and goes to retrieve it.  The story also switched back and forth from Amarrah's past life to the present day.  While the previous life story was interesting and added to the main story, since the book was so short, it ended up detracting from the development of the main story.  The main action happens in less than 1 day and I just couldn't believe that the characters connected so much in less than a day (even given the circumstances I won't spoil). There were a lot of unanswered questions (who was after the box, why was it special, etc). I haven't read any of this author's books before but it was well written.  If you plan on reading the trilogy that this book is setting up, then I would say read it.  However, as a stand alone story, it left too many open plot points.