The Fortune Catcher

Tehran, 1981. Three years after the Islamic Revolution, it is neither the time nor place for a New York-raised Iranian-American woman to return to her father's homeland to marry the young man she loves - or to test the dark predictions made long ago by a blind old soothsayer... The sightless fortune-teller at her aunt's party saw what eyes could not...that love may be no match for tyranny. In the harsh new Iran of the ayatollahs, everything Western is despised and anyone who does not belong is in peril. And Layla Bahari, with her reviled American background, clearly does not belong. No matter that her husband, Dariush, adores her: he is abducted and sent to the fiery Iran-Iraqi front. No matter that Layla only wants to go back to New York with her husband: amid public stonings and pitted against morality squads and unyielding enemies, she faces arrest, imprisonment, torture...and a desperate flight for freedom. An emotionally charged historical novel that offers a penetrating look at post-Revolutionary Iran, telling the dramatic story of an Iranian-American woman whose once-perfect life and love fall victim to the forces of political, societal, and religious extremism Like Jean P. Sassoon's Princess, this emotionally charged debut novel offers a penetrating look behind the curtain of secrecy that shrouds modern Iran, exploring the dreams of the women there and telling the dramatic story of an American-Iranian woman whose once-perfect life and love fall victim to the battle between old and new ways. We were married in secret on September 22, 1981.