Rich and evocative prose that skillfully exposes the stark realities of poverty and charity in today’s Africa. Highly recommended for any fiction collection. – Library Journal, STARRED

A poignant, ennobling, and buoyant tale of risks and rewards, surrender and sacrifice. — Booklist, STARRED

Takes us right into a small village and the lives of its inhabitants. An excellent book club selection. — Book Sense choice by Independent Booksellers

Captivating third novel… Hamilton weaves memorable characters and elemental emotions in artful prose with the lofty theme of Western-imposed “education” versus a village’s perceived perils of exposure to the developed world. — Publishers Weekly

Vibrates with the life and landscape of Africa … peopled with characters readers can’t help but care about deeply. — BookPage

Hamilton’s portrayal of nomadic culture is lovingly and colorfully told. It’s a painterly glimpse into a world that few Westerners will ever see. – USA Today

Hamilton makes us see how much is really at stake in a poverty-stricken place where every possession carries the weight of significance. A larger conflict wouldn’t do justice to the notion of honor as lived by these people; it extends all the way down to the smallest stack of books. — New York Times

This captivating story about a determined chick with a big heart will touch you deeply. — Cosmo Magazine

Hamilton’s writing is so vivid that you’ll feel the Kenyan heat emanting from the pages, you’ll feel the dust on your arms … This is one of those books that you’ll want to pass on to your friends immediately. — Albany Democrat Herald

Quite possibly, this is one of those books you will remember the rest of your life. — Oshkosh Public Library, WI

“Masha Hamilton’s magical new novel transported me across the globe, teaching me about faith, ambition, and the surprise of love. Fi is a character to fall for and cheer for. Her interactions with the people of Mididima are spellbinding and broke my heart.” – Amanda Eyre Ward  

“I’ve always known that books can change lives. Masha Hamilton has opened my eyes to how books can also change entire communities, and not always in the ways one might expect. The Camel Bookmobile is a brave and astonishing novel; it transported me to a world I hadn’t known, and my life is all the richer for it.” – Gayle Brandeis

“In this vivid, absorbing novel Masha Hamilton transports her readers, even more surely than the camels do books, to the village of Mididima and the struggle between traditional values and western education. Richly peopled, full of conflicts and surprises, The Camel Bookmobile made me think and feel in all the best ways. My only regret was that the book had to end.” – Margot Livesey 

Publisher’s Weekly, STARRED

A foreign correspondent’s facade of emotional invincibility is shattered by the death of a colleague in journalist Hamilton’s sharply etched, emotionally ferocious second novel (after Staircase of a Thousand Steps).
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San Francisco Chronicle

Hamilton knows the geographic beauty and the unending blood feuds of the Middle East. She knows it as a journalist (for The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times), she knows it as a resident - the sights, sounds, smells of life and death seem to fill her every pore.
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The Christian Science Monitor

The Distance Between Us dramatizes difficult issues about what draws reporters - and readers - to stories of violence. What does it cost to become the kind of person who “can step over bloody ground for a quote”?
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Library Journal, STARRED

Caddie Blair is a war correspondent in the Middle East whose life is
tragically changed in a single second.
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Booklist

Hamilton not only captures the conflicted feelings of journalists but also the conflicted feelings of those living in the middle of the violence. All sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are presented fairly. Punchy dialogue and prose style turn this introspective look at violence and loss into a page-turner.

–Marta Segal Block

Jerusalem Post

I approached this novel, written by a veteran Middle East reporter and set in Israel during the intifada, with some trepidation, expecting yet another critique of Israel’s moral stance. But Masha Hamilton’s The Distance Between Us does not take sides. Her subject is grief and the desire for revenge, as experienced by a journalist whose colleague is killed.
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San Diego Union-Tribune

In The Distance Between Us, Masha Hamilton’s searing novel set amid the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Caddie is a journalist drawn to explosive violence like a moth to a flamethrower. She keeps getting singed from the heat, but it cauterizes her flayed emotions.
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iVillage

The Basics: As a foreign correspondent for an American newspaper covering the mayhem in Israel, Caddie Blair has to constantly justify her existence. Why is she putting herself in harm’s way? Why does she chase after ambulances and bombs when most people head in the other direction for safety? After she’s ambushed in Lebanon on her way to interview a terrorist, these questions become all the more urgent for those who know her. They want her to take some time to recover, because they can see she’s on the edge of sanity.
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The Seattle Times

Hamilton’s graceful prose, her ability to evoke the setting and her realistic portrayal of a journalist make the book interesting reading.

–Bharti Kirchner

Rocky Mountain News

Hamilton’s novel is a compelling look at the emotional challenges and psychological extremes of covering a war with a shifting front line, as well as a convincing story of love and self-discovery. … A former war correspondent in the Middle East and Moscow, Hamilton writes with the passion of someone who has witnessed firsthand the religious and cultural complexities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In an era when the richness of the Middle East is so often diluted by our American sensibilities, The Distance Between Us is not only compelling and fast-paced, but timely and enlightening as well.

–Jennie A. Camp

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers

Come along on a magical mystery tour, courtesy of Masha Hamilton! This first novel, set in the Jordanian desert circa the mid-1960s, is rendered so authentically it had us shaking the sand out of our shoes.
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Kirkus (STARRED)

Former AP Middle East correspondent Hamilton writes with striking clarity, using words as carefully as the Bedouin use water to bring a disappearing world to vibrant life. Here, in a luminous debut, are the voices, real and rarely heard, of traditional Arab women.

Library Journal

Young Jammana, a principal character of Hamilton’s eloquent first novel, possesses a familial gift that enables her to experience others’ memories. Her grandfather displays an equally intuitive gift, allowing him to glimpse the future. Because of the mixed blessings their ancestral aptitude begets, they are, along with two others, outsiders in their fictional village.
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The Boulder Weekly

Masha Hamilton is a poet. She brings the desert to life; its sounds of bracelets jingling and sheep baying, its heat, its many secrets. She creates characters you can put your arms around. Staircase of a Thousand Steps is the translation of an entire culture. Its pages smell of jasmine and freshly baked bread. It transports you to a warm, earthen rooftop amidst a gentle evening breeze. It is here that it asks you this question: Are you living your own life, or do fear and expectations enslave you? Do you even know?

–Lynn T. Theodose

Publisher’s Weekly

Hamilton is a natural storyteller: she weaves past and present artfully together, the narrative moves at a good clip and the mysticism throughout is rendered believably. Readers eager for a much different take on small-town hurts and rivalries will be intrigued by how these elements play out in this sheltered corner of the world.

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The Seattle Press

Masha Hamilton writes with flowing ease and rippling words that are hard to turn away from. She lived in the area for many years and seems to have a marvelous insight into the minds and hearts of the Palestinians, especially their women.
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Associated Press

Beautifully written first novel…her experience comes through in the book’s details. Steam rises off dirt floors made shiny with sheep’s blood, helicopters growl overhead, the scent of dung mixes with that of jasmine… Faridah’s fate and that of the village unfold in elegant language as Hamilton compellingly writes about love and betrayal.

Tucson Weekly

Each scene is meticulously described in sensual terms. The taste of bread cooked with sweet basil, the oily smell of a plant you cannot wash off, the feel of the air in a room seeming to vibrate, and the sound of rain drumming a hopeless, warning melody awaken all the senses.
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Booklist

Focusing on themes of love, betrayal, friendship and duty, Hamilton shows how each generation’s decisions create a web that ensnares the next. The prose is simple but elegant, and subtle interweaving of the mystical and the mundane makes the novel delightfully compelling.