A successful novel is a complete human life, with all its good and evil, righteousness and corruption. It is a life that is transmitted from human societies with their noise and turmoil to the writer's soul, mind, and heart, shaking him to the core and stirring within him feelings of joy and sadness, hope and pain. When his depths are ablaze with these conflicting emotions, his excitement transforms into calm, his anger into contemplation and reflection. These events then transform into mature human experiences that the successful novelist conveys to the people in an exciting work that blends his spirit, thought, and feelings. Here, the novel stands tall!! I wonder if our young Saudi writer, Badriya, who launched her first novel, "Cities of Ashes," from the center of the Kingdom, writing it before graduating from university and almost two years before September 11, 2001, was able to do this?! We do not hesitate to affirm-from our perspective-that the novel has painted for us this intertwined picture of contemporary human life, and that it has predicted these major events, or similar ones, orchestrated by the fingers of Zionism. It has transported us with it to strange worlds in the vast expanse of America, and has plunged us into dark labyrinths where those poisonous bats roam. This means that it has presented us with a successful, integrated novel in terms of imagination, dialogue, lively and dynamic language, and its effective use of symbolism through the novel's heroine, "Rama," who begins with you as a little girl, only to discover at the end of the novel who she is. Al-Obeikan Publishing