A stunning debut and a fascinating love story ... Romeo and Juliet in tehran. this beautiful first novel conjures up a world that is now gone - an exotic, seductive place just before the revolution in Iran. Mahastee and Reza loved each other as children, when Reza's family worked for Mahastee's in a more noble time now long past. they have not seen each other since they were sixteen, and now chance has reunited them. Mahastee is now married to a man who is well-established and well-connected politically, a man she has grown to despise. Reza has grown up to become a revolutionary, leading underground meetings and living at the edge of fear. their encounters are a portrait not only of an ill-fated love, but a country at odds with itself moving ever-closer to a doomed collision.