Beneath the Same Heaven: A Novel

Selected as a 2018 Nautilus Award Silver Winner in the Fiction / Large Publisher category.

A story of love and terrorism.

Kathryn, an American woman, and Rashid, a Pakistani-born Muslim man, seem to have bridged the divide between Western and Islamic world views with their marriage and two American-born children. But everything changes when Rashid’s father is suddenly killed by a US drone attack near the Afghan border, and their cross-cultural family descends into conflicting ideas of loyalty, justice, identity, revenge, and terrorism.

“A thought-provoking love story. This novel masterfully blends the dangers of geopolitics superimposed on romantic and unconditional familial love... Ruff bravely circumnavigates the violence at the heart of the story to lay bare theintricate drama of before and after. Revenge versus justice. Clanship versus kinship. Passionate love versus filial obligation. All are explored with intimate humanity in this compelling, tender, and timely novel.”—Kim Fay, author of The Map of Lost Memories, Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel

ANNE MARIE RUFF has spent her whole life telling stories: as a novelist, journalist, radio broadcaster, editor, teacher, and actor. She has spent much of her life traveling the world, living abroad, and asking questions in search of stories worth telling. Her work has been published/broadcast by NPR, BBC, PRI, PBS, Christian Science Monitor, Time Asia, Far Eastern Economic Review, and International Herald Tribune TV. Anne Marie's first novel, Through These Veins, follows the development of a cure for AIDS, and draws on her reporting about the environment, biodiversity, biotech, and AIDS research in Thailand, Ethiopia, and Turkmenistan. She lives in the big woods of Minnesota with her husband and their two sons.