Haveli

Like the fiery desert birds caged on the veranda at Okurabad, Shabanu is held captive. Rahim, an elderly, powerful clan leader, adores his youngest wife but demands her absolute obedience. The other pampered women in the household despise Shabanu for her youth and for her influence over Rahim, and neither she nor her young daughter, Mumtaz, is safe from their cruelty. Meticulously, Shabanu plans for her and Mumtaz's future, knowing that she and her daughter will have no place at Okurabad after Rahim's death.

A visit to the haveli - Rahim's home within the ancient city of Lahore - starts a sequence of events that threatens Shabanu's plans and, ultimately, her life. For in the haveli, she falls totally and unexpectedly in love with Omar, who like Shabanu, is bound by centuries-old traditions that make their union impossible. As Shabanu struggles with her desire for Omar, she helps her one friend prepare for an arranged marriage that can only bring sorrow. All the while, she knows she must choose, as she has once before, a path for herself and her family.

Awards and Citations:

- Family Choice Award
- ALA Notable Book
- Starred reviews in Kirkus, Booklist, School Library Journal
- YALSA Popular Paperbacks

Reviews:

Shabanu (1989), with its wholly realized characters and its glimpses into another culture, had a presence not easily found in young adult books. It is often difficult for a sequel to generate the same excitement that a first novel by a talented fresh voice evokes, but that is not the case here. Haveli will hold readers with the same rapt attention, and their involvement with the young Pakistani woman, Shabanu, her friends, and family will linger. The story picks up five years later. Shabanu, given in marriage to an elderly, powerful man, has now presented him a daughter, Mumtaz, who means everything to her mother. Though her husband adores Shabanu, he has neither the time nor the inclination to protect her from the various cruelties and intrigues that occur in a household where there are three cultured senior wives who look down on Shabanu as a desert interloper. To protect her daughter, Shabanu is constantly making plans for their safety should her husband die, but when Shabanu becomes involved in a plan to save her only friend from a disastrous marriage and begins having feelings for her husband’s nephew, her situation becomes increasingly perilous. Staples brews a potent mix here: the issue of a woman’s role in a traditional society, page-turning intrigue, tough women characters, and a fluidity of writing that blends it all together. Staples has some very strong things to say about the lack of power some women have over their own lives, but the reader never hears preaching. Rather, as in the best stories, the message comes through the characters, their anguish and their triumphs.”
    - Booklist starred review

“Staples imbues Shabanu and her beautiful, brutally repressive world with a splendid reality that transcends the words on the page. The betrayals, violence, and richly sustaining loyalties she invokes in the gripping final events have a convincing inexorability tempered with hope at the tantalizingly open conclusion. A sequel isn’t promised, but admirers of the intelligent and courageous Shabanu will thiers for more. Map, list of characters, glossary. (Fiction. 12+)”
-- Kirkus Reviews

“Because Haveli seems as freshly inspired as its predecessor, it functions more as part of a true set than a sequel, though the opening scenes certainly incorporate enough information – a singular and challenging literary task – to allow the book to stand on its own. As she did in the first volume, Staples has walked a fine line between the 'outsider's’ and 'insider's’ view. Her respect for a Muslim culture that, from a Western standpoint, renders women powerless (except through their skills at manipulation) resonates in the portrayal of an individual’s attempt to balance the best of tradition with fresh new possibilities. On the one hand, Shabanu draws deeply from her family’s values; on the other, she rejects the resignation of her best friend – the ill-fated daughter of her husband’s evil youngest brother – who declares, ‘Duty is not so difficult when there’s no alternative.’
    Supporting the complex social dynamics are vivid details of village and urban settings. All the more immediately rendered through action rather than description. While the intricate cast and unfamiliar terms will send readers to the list of characters and glossary from time to time, the dramatic plot will bring them breathlessly back to the story. And don’t be deceived: in addition to sensitive insights, there’s also a realistic strain of sex and violence here. It’s never sensationalized and yet will draw YA readers like a magnet.
    There only remains that niggling question of what audience will read this 260-page saga set somewhere most mall shoppers couldn’t locate without a map (which is provided for that purpose). Well, the answer is, whoever reads it will be richly rewarded by going beyond themselves into a new place and persona… When you find a YA book you really love, you know you’ll find readers for it…There are always those kids … who want to lose themselves in another world, and perhaps find themselves in the process. Suzanne Staples has given them a rare opportunity to do both.”
-- Betsy Hearne, Editor, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books