Exiles

Opening the door to a Nepal few Westerners have encountered, "Exiles" is the story of an American volunteer doctor and his teenage daughter whose lives are irrevocably changed when they move to Kathmandu and find themselves in the midst of civil war.
Fleeing the messy dissolution of his marriage, cardiologist Peter Scanlon decides to take a risk and move with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Alex, to Kathmandu, where he plans to volunteer in a free health clinic. Upon arrival, Peter finds himself in a foreign culture that soon challenges his perspectives and beliefs. Nepal--chronically short of medical supplies, a country where children from rural areas often are sold into prostitution--is home to a growing Maoist insurrection, testing Peter in ways he fails to anticipate. His friendship with a Tibetan Buddhist lama, and their discussions of Eastern and Western perspectives on issues including evolution and its effects on the mind and the nature of existence, shift Peter's framework of understanding. Alex, meanwhile, flourishes as she explores her emerging sexuality and an exciting new culture.
Soon, both father and daughter face an ordeal that threatens not just their beliefs but their very physical survival. When Peter is summoned to aid a pair of Western climbers seriously injured on Mt. Annapurna, his and Alex's lives become a nightmare of violence and fear.
Suspenseful and thought-provoking, "Exiles" is an extraordinary debut in which East meets West at the point where lives hang in the balance.