Hairdresser and bestselling author of ‘Kabul Beauty School’ Deborah Rodriguez will be at Nicola’s Books for a discussion and signing of her debut novel, ‘A Cup of Friendship’ on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 3 p.m.

Rodriguez became a hairdresser to put herself through college to get a music degree, but things didn’t quite work out the way she planned. Instead she tried a variety of different jobs but always ended up back at the hair salon. Then after vacationing to places suggested by friends Rodriguez found that she spent more time in the non-tourist areas than the trendy places every other tourist went to. In Jamaica she met a mother of five whom she befriended and spent most of her time with her new friend and her family. This started Rodriguez’s “vacations with a purpose.”

Soon Rodriguez was traveling around the world to do humanitarian work. Her first trip to Afghanistan was in 2002. She had taken emergency and disaster relief training two months before 9-11 with a group called Care for All Foundation. Rodriguez fought to be on one of the first teams to go to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. It is here that her story starts. She helped build a beauty school and got to know the women whose lives were starting again out of the rubble.

Rodriquez had no intention of writing a book, what she did do was write detailed emails to her customers back in Holland, Michigan about what was going on in Kabul. She wanted to keep in touch with her customers so that when she was done with her work in Afghanistan she would still have a business to come back to. Little did she know that her friend had been keeping her emails and had them combined with photos and made them into a book for her. The rest we shall say is history. Random House bought the book and after some work on the manuscript ‘Kabul Beauty School’ was published and became a best seller.

Now Deborah Rodriguez has entered the fiction world with ‘A Cup of Friendship,' a story about a coffee shop in Kabul and the women who meet there. Each woman has her own story to tell, and Rodriguez shows how these women will form a bond that leaves them changed for the better.

Nicola’s Books is very happy to have Deborah Rodriguez visit our store. For more information regarding this event please contact us at 734-662-0600 or at www.nicolasbooks.com.