In 1953 Tehran, a young man failed to meet his betrothed in a Tehran square. Sixty years later and half a world away, the woman, now grown old, is about to discover why. This sweeping love story spans 60 years and two continents, taking the reader between contemporary New England and 1953 Tehran, thoroughly immersing the reader in the volatile political climate of 1950s Iran. This is easily one of the best books I've read this year: listen to me recommend it on Episode 194 of What Should I Read Next ("No plot, no problem!"), and we'll be reading it in the MMD Book Club in January, where we'll pair it with A Place for Us. If you enjoyed either of these books, add the other to your TBR right now.

From the publisher: "In Marjan Kamali's delightful and heartwarming debut novel, Darya has discovered the perfect gift for her daughter's twenty-fifth birthday: an ideal husband. Mina, however, is fed up with her mother's years of endless matchmaking and the spreadsheets grading available Iranian-American bachelors. Having spent her childhood in Tehran and the rest of her life in New York City, Mina has experienced cultural clashes firsthand, but she's learning that the greatest clashes sometimes happen at home. After a last ill-fated attempt at matchmaking, mother and daughter embark on a return journey to Iran. Immersed once again in Persian culture, the two women gradually begin to understand each other."

Kamali’s deeply personal, beautifully told narrative about a decades-long, life-defining friendship is set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. Ellie and Homa seem to have little in common, yet they are everything to each other, and share a commitment to women’s rights as they navigate a period of cataclysmic change in their country and their own families. As they come of age and face ever greater political danger, the young women's friendship suffers as they choose opposing paths in the fight for women’s rights. This emotional, heart-centered story perceptively captures the Iran of this era—Tehran as it was then, the climate, the politics, the food!—and moves readers as it portrays Homa and Ellie’s quest to become lion women: powerful Iranian women who don’t back down, no matter what.