The year is 1838. As Queen Victoria prepares to accede to the throne, fierce Afghan tribes are raising an army against the British invaders. The revolt will end in 1842 with the massacre of the Indian army drafted to fight for the British.

In the midst of the uproar, Prudence, the daughter of a Scottish pastor, leaves Peshawar to follow a French adventurer she fell in love with: Louis-Sauveur Chantecaille. Out of love for him, she will put her life at risk, accompanying him on a perilous mission led by the British army, to Kabul, where they discover that if it’s possible to enter Afghanistan, it’s almost impossible to get out.

From the palaces of Punjab to the mountains of Hindu-Kush and through the bazaars of Djelalabad, this gripping historical novel revives the tragic legends of the Khyber Pass to rise to a more universal statement.

Khyber Pass is a sumptuous historical novel about war and love, where the skills of novelist and historian come together in the person of Catherine Decours to tell a little-known story of one of Afghanistan’s most violent periods.