Birds in the Rain: A Novel

By Rana Hanna

When 16-year-old Michael Cape goes missing on the eve of a devastating war, only one person, Marc, knows where he may be. Unfortunately for Michael’s mother Layla, a young widow still reeling from grief over the death of her husband Sebastian, Marc is the one person she is trying to avoid.

As Layla and Marc embark on the search for her son and hit one dead-end after another, they have to face and come to terms with their own tumultuous pasts. Layla is unable to forgive her father for trying to separate her from Michael and for sending her away to boarding school at the age of twelve, following the death of her mother. Marc, an ex-militia man who has become a father figure to Michael and whose relationship to Layla is overwrought at best, is still trying to come to terms with the disappearance of his own brother during the Lebanese Civil War.

Set against the backdrop of the 2006 Lebanese-Israeli war, Birds in the Rain by Rana Hanna is a story of love, loss, and resilience and what it takes to find the light in the darkest of times.