"It is the eve of World War I in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city on the edge of the Caspian Sea, poised precariously between east and west. Ali Khan Shirvanshir, a Muslim schoolboy from a proud aristocratic family, has fallen in love with the beautiful and enigmatic Nino Kipiani, a Christian girl with distinctly European sensibilities. To be together they must overcome blood feud and scandal, attempting a daring horseback rescue, and travel from the bustling street of oil-boom Baku, through starkly beautiful deserts and remote mountain villages, to the opulent palace of Ali's uncle in neighboring Persia. Ultimately the lovers are drawn back to Baku, but when war threatens their future, Ali is forced to choose between his loyalty to the beliefs of his Asian ancestors and his profound devotion to Nino."
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I think I would have liked this book more if it hadn't been billed as some grand love story. It was ultimately, I suppose, but mostly in the second half of the book. Otherwise, it felt more like a plot device to show the struggle between east and west than the primary storyline. But what this book did very well was show that struggle - Muslim vs. Christian, Asia vs. Europe, Russia/Armenia vs. Persia, history vs. the future. I'm now interested to learn more about the Azerbaijan of the present, because it seems likely that, given geography, many of the issues brought to the fore by World War I have never been fully settled.
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