Queen Noor

The beautiful Lisa Halaby was born to a mother of Swedish ancestry and a father of Arab descent. A shy child, Lisa led a generally quiet life until she accompanied her father to Jordan, where she met its monarch, King Hussein. In a whirlwind romance often likened to a fairytale, the pair fell in love and married after a three-week courtship, and the American Lisa Halaby became Queen Noor of Jordan. Despite appearances, the reality of Queen Noor's everyday life hardly resembles that of a storybook princess. After her marriage, she became stepmother to Hussein's eight children from previous marriages and gave birth to four of her own. Princeton-educated, Noor applied her natural intelligence to launch her own social projects for women, children, and refugees. She has challenged stereotypes about women in her country while enduring rumors from those suspicious of an ambitious American-born queen. Perhaps Noor faced no greater struggle than her husband's fight with cancer -- a harrowing battle that he eventually lost. No longer queen, Noor still goes on, continually working for the disadvantaged and redefining the role of women in an Islamic world. Book jacket.Darraj, Susan Muaddi is the author of 'Queen Noor', published 2004 under ISBN 9780791077368 and ISBN 0791077365.