COMPELLING.

ENLIGHTENING.

UNFORGETTABLE.  

‘A sensuous and transporting novel filled with the colours, tastes and fragrances of life in seventeenth-century Iran’

Geraldine Brooks

'The descriptions of the village and the city pull you into the story, and the characters keep you there. The setting may be unusual, but the themes are universal: the ups and downs of friendship, the love of family, the various relationships between man and woman. The narrator is unnamed, which is the author’s way of acknowledging anonymous artists from the time. However, this in no way distracts from the story, and in fact, it was something I hadn’t even realised until I read other reviews. Despite the journeys that she takes, and the hardships she endures, there is a gentleness running through this book.'

A Reader