Things That Shatter: A Memoir

Winner of the 2019 Daybreak Press Book Award for Best Non-fiction Biography/Memoir, Things That Shatter is a "superbly written... honest, gritty... page-turner will have you either nodding sagely as you recall your own experiences or making a map of what to avoid - but either way you'll be in awe of Kaighla, her son, and their journey."

In 2009, Kaighla-a young, single mother from the Midwest-converted to Islam and later met and married the Egyptian imam of a mosque in Brooklyn. Unbeknownst to her, he was still married to his first wife-who was raising their six children back home in Egypt-and was about to be deported for marriage fraud.

Two years later, Kaighla and her two young children moved with him to rural Egypt. Thus began a period of intense abuse and neglect that would last for several years. Thousands of miles away from her support system and lacking any resources to escape her abuser, Kaighla struggled to stay alive in a harsh and sometimes unyielding environment.

With a lifetime of trauma already under her belt, Kaighla struggled to manage her increasingly frail mental health, all while giving birth to several children in the span of seven years.

Things That Shatter is a memoir of resilience and the power of the human spirit to endure, come what may. It aims to shed light on abuse and healing within the Muslim community and to help women protect themselves from wolves in Sheikh's clothing.