Amineh is studying Persian literature at Tehran University during a period of mounting political unrest. Unlike her fellow students, however, Amineh would rather not involve herself in the anti-shah movement. Books connect her to the parents she lost as a child, and she wants to write a book about their love and their greatest passion: rose water. Her best friend convinces her to accompany her to an underground meeting honoring a mutual friend. There she meets Farzad, an opposition leader who has a plan not only to remove the shah but to rid the world of another threat that hangs over them all. The revolution unfolds, leading her on a journey that will either make or break her.

 

The novel was selected as a finalist for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and longlisted for the 2019 Mslexia Novel Competition and the 2016 Bath Novel Award. It also advanced to the second stage of the 2019 Craft First Chapters Contest.