A beautiful and meaningful collection of stories portraying an era we have needlessly forgotten . . . a capturing of our timeless matters of the heart: faith, loss, betrayal, yearning, and the ragged hot rock-strewn desert path that is the way to redemption. I can think of no more worthy collection to wear Flannery O'Connor's mantle. -- Bret Lott * author of Jewel * Muias voice is essential. These stories are fire, and this book is powerful. Your favorite book is waiting to meet you. -- Luis Alberto Urrea * author of Goodnight, Irene: A Novel * Like the far tolling of a bell, Muia's stories are reminiscent of tale, legend, and fable. Stark and moving, unsparing and compassionate, her work is grounded in history but suspended in no particular time . . . these are spellbinding myths to get lost in. -- Robert Clark * author of In the Deep Midwinter: A Novel * Muia paints a chapter of our continent's history that is tragic and disturbing, but does so with a sense of nuance and generosity that finds the beauty and humanity even in the most brutal events. -- Mary Kenagy Mitchell * Executive Editor, Image Journal * Muias language is like her setting: sparse and beautiful. She writes with emotional restraint, her stories driven by details and images that feel unexpected and shocking and new, and by the actions of her compelling characters. . . . Such is the world of Muias collection, a world in which love and violence, survival and hope, live side by side. Reading A Desert between Two Seas is an immersive experience, one that I am delighted my fellow lovers of story and history, of vivid characters and setting, will soon have also. -- Lori Ostlund * author of After the Parade *
