When was the Farishta written?

Angela Morgan, a diplomat, saw her husband's murder during the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut twenty-one years ago. She rushed back to America, devastated by her loss, and hid in the State Department's backwaters, avoiding high-profile positions that would enhance her career. Now that her career is about to come to an end and she has no genuine contacts back home, she must accept the only available assignment to a remote British army outpost in northern Afghanistan.

Angela must strive to gain the respect of her colleagues, particularly the mysterious Mark Davies, a British major who is at once her staunchest supporter and her harshest critic. Angela breaks out of camp dressed in a burka to deliver relief to the refugees in the war-torn region, frustrated at her inability to contribute to the nation's restoration. In the local Dari language, she becomes their farishta, or 'angel,' and finds a new purpose for her life, a means to finally put her pain behind her.

Farishta is a deeply emotional and fast-paced narrative about a woman fighting to get beyond a previous trauma, and discovering a new community, a new love, and a new sense of self in the process, based on the author's experiences as a diplomat in Afghanistan.