very enjoyable novel set in Iran during a period of unrest in the 1960’s. Marco an English professor arrives in Iran to teach English at the university.
His roommate Farhad introduces him to his family and Marco is besotted by Farhad’s cousin Mastaneh. In Iran during this time, woman are not able to interact freely with men and if they do their reputations are tarnished. Mastaneh is also attracted to Marco and they continue to meet in secretly and fall in love.
The novel is also intertwined with two other love stories.Farhad is having a relationship with a married woman whose husband is divorcing her. He loves her but believes that his friends and family will think badly of him if he marries her. Marco tells him, if he loves her he should marry her. Another teacher that Marco is friends with invites Marco to visit him and announces that he is going to marry a girl he has chosen by just looking at her. Marco assists him with translating to the girls parents.
A very sad ending.

Thank you to NetGalley for access to this audiobook

The Islamic revolution in Iran did not arise out of thin air. For years, the country had seethed with repressed resentment of the Shah's heavy-handed, authoritarian policies. Illegal societies operated underground, some tracing back to the beginning of the Shah's reign. Nationalists, socialists, Marxists, and Islamic leftists and reformers--all with somewhat different agendas--juggled for influence and support. The universities, mosques, and tea houses were filled with discussions that ranged from the theoretical to the seditious. This novel presents a heart-warming picture of the Iranian people who befriend, guide, love, and laugh at Marco, a young American teaching at the University of Tehran when forces opposing the Shah were gathering strength. Marco naively assumes at first that U.S. help is wanted and appreciated by the Iranians, but soon he comes to see himself--in the eyes of some--as an instrument of the West's arrogant assertion of control. And then he falls in love.

The story for this was interesting and was a nice glance into a period of history not often covered in books. The narrator at times was a bit grating at times and left the story disjointed at times, I think a physical book would be the rest format to read this in

A story where two cultures meet. A woman who longs for freedom must be willing to change to experience it. A country caught in the middle of two ways of thinking resulting in an atmosphere of watchfulness and fear. A stranger motivated by his own emotional needs and putting his beloved at risk to fulfil them. All wrapped in a love of poetry, books, hypocrisy and male dominance.

This was an interesting book and I am pleased I took the time to listen to it. I was sometimes worried for the characters and needed to keep listening to hear what happened. However, there were times of humour. Unusually, I had to speed the narration up because it made a steady pace even slower.

I am not to sure what it was about this book that made it so hard to engage with. Upon reflection the narrative was good and the story interesting.

This is a very engaging love story recounting the challenges of navigating the somewhat fraught but rich exchanges between people from two cultures, Iran and U.S. The political backdrop of the pre-revolutionary Iran, and the rural/city dichotomy of the cultural norms of the Iranian society, were characterized well. These details added robust colors to the foregrounded story. Having lived in Iran during this period, it allowed me to relive some of my past experiences. The concepts of US colonial rule and Shah's intelligence presence in governing people's actions, the societal rules restricting women's freedom and everyone's general scrutiny/interference in the lives of the people in their orbit, are all aspects of my own background, and were sketched well. I appreciated the occasional terms/places illustrating the everyday experience of the main characters. Weaving poetry through the story evoked the right romantic milieu for the two protagonists; that said, the author's rendition/accent in reciting the poems was somewhat jarring and took away from the overall experience.

I thought the narrator was fine but had trouble connecting with the story. I needed something a little snappier to listen to while working around the house. Thank you!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a young english professor Marcos travels and experiences in the 1960's in Iran. Pretty much the first thing he does when he arrives is to promptly fall in love with his friend Farhads beautiful and charming cousin, Mastaneh. Iran is a different world for Marco, men can do anything, women cannot. He tries to point out this discrepancy to Farhad, but Farhad has been raised to think of any woman who is 'friends' with a man is a whore and not worth knowing. Marco and Mastaneh keep their relationship secret. During this tumultuous time in history there is a lot of political unrest. The Shah is barely holding on to power, religious zealots, communists and others abound. The times were changing in Iran and many Iranians especially the poorer farmers and peasants did not like it. The Shah had tried to modernize his country, however he left behind these poorer folks and there was much resentment. There is a sweet soft humor to this story that I really enjoyed. Marco is adopted by his Iranian friends and grows to love not only Mastaneh, but the country itself. Highly recommended. ****.5 Stars

I enjoyed the concept of this novel and appreciated the attention to details that we were given into the lives of the characters, especially given the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, which I only knew vaguely from past memoirs and a chapter or two in history books. While I was certainly sucked into the world that Keech lays out, there were moments that felt a little too overwrought for my usual fare. Some parts, such as the dangers of being American in Iran during this conflict felt overshadowed by the melodrama of this relatively love-sick fool on his mission abroad. I really wanted to love this more, but the prose never truly captured my attention and the dialogue provided stilted ruminations on life, love and traditions, which I wish had provided insights into the minds of these turbulent times, but seemed to play out the plight of any person at any time trying to live out some forbidden love story, that probably could have taken place anywhere.

After reading the author's biography where he mentioned having recently been reading books set in Iran and that he taught English and World Literature, this book made so much more sense to me. It accounts for how literary-minded it wanted to be. Between the lover's secret book seller's hideaway and parents who wanted Mastineh and her sisters to be well-read, it casually tosses around verses of poetry by Rumi, Attar and Hafez, which felt fitting.

I have to say, the piece of the puzzle that brought this rating down for me was actually the narration by Keech unfortunately. There are some who can provide nuanced voices to build a world and there are some who can rip you out of a scene just as easily and I found Keech to be of the latter group. He has my timid vote for his characters who were men, but anytime that he tried to provide a woman's voice, it came across much like a geriatric octogenarian, not some young teenage ingenue on the cusp of her first romance, or a sister who is barely older or younger than our heroine. And while Farhad was there for many a comic moment, his "voice" felt a little too reminiscent of Yogi Bear and I kept expecting him to say "Hey boo boo, let's go get us a pic-a-nic basket" like a morning cartoon, or the caricature of an actual person. (You gave it a go, now find a pro.)

Thanks to Real Nice Books, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Audiobooks for the ARC audiobook via NetGalley.

This is a very interesting love story in which a forbidden romance plays out in the exotic and dangerous setting of pre-revolutionary Iran.