Told in alternating narratives that bridge centuries, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Samira Ahmed traces the lives of two young women fighting to write their own stories and escape the pressure of cultural expectations in worlds too long defined by men. Its August in Paris and 17-year-old Khayyam Maquet American, French, Indian, Muslim is at a crossroads. This holiday with her parents should be a dream trip for the budding art historian. But her maybe-exboyfriend is probably ghosting her, she might have just blown her chance at getting into her dream college, and now all she really wants is to be back home in Chicago figuring out her messy life instead of brooding in the City of Light. Two hundred years before Khayyams summer of discontent, Leila is struggling to survive and keep her true love hidden from the Pasha who has gifted her with favored status in his harem. In the present day and with the company of a descendant of Alexandre Dumas Khayyam begins to connect allusions to an enigmatic 19th-century Muslim woman whose path may have intersected with Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Delacroix, and Lord Byron. Echoing across centuries, Leila and Khayyams lives intertwine, and as one womans long-forgotten life is uncovered, anothers is transformed.
