In the year 2020, a young woman joins the Dutch Resistance to defeat fascism, testing her passions, loyalties, friendships, and faith.
When Katrien Brinkerhoff turns eleven, Islamic terrorists brutally murder six Dutch actors, which touches off a tinderbox of sectarian fighting across Europe. Within weeks, Islamists take over the government. The most liberal city in the world becomes the most conservative, and Katrien and her family scramble to survive, forced to make one impossible choice after another.
Women must wear burkas. Children go to madrassahs, Christians and Jews are not allowed to own businesses, cannot work in government, cannot go to college. Atheists are sent to work camps. When her father dies defending the public library, Katrien's mother marries a family friend who is Muslim. They convert, and change her name to Salima.
At sixteen Salima joins the Resistance as a courier, then as a Postbode, moving Christians and Jews out of Europe, then as a saboteur, working with the exile government in Copenhagen to free Europe.
Then Salima makes the biggest sacrifice of her life - an arranged marriage to Kazan Basturk, son of a powerful Islamist, a decision that will lead her to question every choice she has ever made, eventually taking her to Turkey, where Coalition Forces will soon invade.
With a stunning sense of physical detail and reality, Amsterdam 2020 deftly interweaves the lives of Salima, her past, her loves, her work in the Resistance, and shows us a future that seems all too possible.
Genre: Thriller
When Katrien Brinkerhoff turns eleven, Islamic terrorists brutally murder six Dutch actors, which touches off a tinderbox of sectarian fighting across Europe. Within weeks, Islamists take over the government. The most liberal city in the world becomes the most conservative, and Katrien and her family scramble to survive, forced to make one impossible choice after another.
Women must wear burkas. Children go to madrassahs, Christians and Jews are not allowed to own businesses, cannot work in government, cannot go to college. Atheists are sent to work camps. When her father dies defending the public library, Katrien's mother marries a family friend who is Muslim. They convert, and change her name to Salima.
At sixteen Salima joins the Resistance as a courier, then as a Postbode, moving Christians and Jews out of Europe, then as a saboteur, working with the exile government in Copenhagen to free Europe.
Then Salima makes the biggest sacrifice of her life - an arranged marriage to Kazan Basturk, son of a powerful Islamist, a decision that will lead her to question every choice she has ever made, eventually taking her to Turkey, where Coalition Forces will soon invade.
With a stunning sense of physical detail and reality, Amsterdam 2020 deftly interweaves the lives of Salima, her past, her loves, her work in the Resistance, and shows us a future that seems all too possible.
Genre: Thriller
Used availability for Ruth Francisco's Amsterdam 2020