Sunny is an expat in Kabul who blissfully runs a coffee shop for other Americans in the country. When Yazmina, a pregnant young woman from a nearby village, is kidnapped and later abandoned near the coffee shop, Sunny instinctively comes to her aid. Candace, a wealthy American, also pitches in, while Isabel, a journalist, chronicles Yazmina's woe. Meanwhile, Halajan, a local mother, is reeling from a forbidden love affair.

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a humanitarian aid group. Surrounded by people whose skills--as doctors, nurses, and therapists-- seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners...