Debbie passed me this book because she liked it. I liked it too. My only complaint was that I couldn’t decide what time it was set in. The author’s note at the end said it was somewhere around the 1500s, but the culture has changed so little since then that I couldn’t really tell. No big deal though.
The unnamed narrator is the daughter of a rug maker in a small town in Iran. When her father dies, she and her mother have to move to the capital city of Isfahan to stay with her father’s half brother who is also a rug maker. He recognizes a special ability in her and teaches her some of his master rug making techniques. His wife, however, is a money-grubbing harpy who uses the poor relatives as slave labor. She begrudges them every morsel of food they eat. Eventually, she is married off (for 3 months) to a wealthy horse breeder. She learns how to please him and gets her contract renewed. Then, her best friend marries the guy for life. Now she has to decide whether to keep seeing her friend’s husband (and her own) or refuse the next contract and alienate her family.
It was beautifully written and easy to plow through in a couple of days.
I thought this was beautifully written as well!