Jasmine Nights

This steamy, sweeping historical draws readers into the seductive world of WWII Egypt. Half Turkish and half Welsh by birth, Saba Tarcan is a young British singer. Performing at a hospital in southern England for convalescing soldiers, she meets Dom Benson, a British pilot injured in the war. She leaves home to join the Entertainments National Service Association, which supplies entertainment for the British armed forces, a move that leads her parents to disown her. Once signed on, she’s sent to Egypt, where she meets up again with Dom. Their romance is cut short by Saba’s secret intelligence mission in the Middle East, about which she cannot tell Dom, who, feeling rebuffed, leaves on a combat mission. Saba risks her life and Dom, shot down, is presumed dead. Gregson’s latest (after Band of Angels) displays the author’s command of wartime fiction. Saba is a modern woman struggling with old-fashioned ideas and Dom is a surprisingly complex hero. Seen through their eyes, the wartime Middle East is a heady, intoxicating place and readers will be swept away by the lush prose. Agent: Marcia Burch. (June)