Although the lovers are only able to be alone together on a handful of occasions and Dalia's virginity remains intact, her father is so enraged when he hears of the affair from her older brother that he kills her two months after her twenty-sixth birthday. Khouri claimed that as a result, she had been forced to seek asylum in Queensland, Australia. Hoax scandal Questions about Khouri's story surfaced almost immediately [1], as several readers wrote on message boards that much of the book didn't ring true, and located 73 factual errors (some of them basic), anachronisms, and exaggerations (e.g. claiming that Jordan borders Kuwait, "fanciful" depictions of Amman, incorrect statements about Jordanian law, and banknotes that were not printed at the time the book supposedly took place).