A Bitter Veil: American Woman Trapped in Khomeini's Iran

by Libby Fischer Hellmann
A Bitter Veil: American Woman Trapped in Khomeini's Iran
Author: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Publisher: The Red Herrings Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2011-12-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 193873372X
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Anna & Nouri fall in love, move to Tehran, and marry. Four months later the shah is deposed. Anna, a young American studying in Chicago falls in love with fellow-student Nouri, the son of a wealthy Iranian business executive. Anna, whose parents are divorced and remote, eagerly moves to Tehran where she marries and is embraced by Nouri's family. A few months later, however, in February 1978, the Shah is deposed and the Islamic Republic of Iran is formed. . Readers will be drawn in through the well-researched inside look at Iran in the late 1970s and gain perspective on what the people in that time and place endured. A Bitter Veil is so thought-provoking that it especially would be a great title for book clubs to discuss. Amy Alessio, BookReporter.com Life turns upside down for the couple as men, and especially women, are restricted in their activities, clothing, and behavior. Arrests and torture are frequent, education for women is prohibited, and Anna cannot travel without her husband's permission. Although she tries to conform to please her husband and new family, Anna chafes under the oppression, while Nouri seems to embrace it. Anna grows increasingly unhappy, and as events become more explosive, so does Nouri. Anna is desperate to return to America, but Nouri refuses to allow it. Tension builds until a shattering event changes everything and plunges Anna into a tumultuous—and dangerous—vortex, raising the possibility she will never leave Iran alive. Hellmann crafts a tragically beautiful story around a message that is both subtle and vibrant. The author does an amazing job of delivering her point but never by sacrificing the quality of her storytelling. Instead, the message drives the psychological and emotional conflict painting a bleak and heart-wrenching tale that will stick with the reader long after they finish the book. Bryan Van Meter, CrimeSpree Magazine If you enjoy the historical novels of Ken Follett, Kristin Hannah, and Kate Quinn, you'll love the Compulsively Readable Thrillers by Libby Hellmann.

Prisoner of Tehran

by Marina Nemat
Prisoner of Tehran
Author: Marina Nemat
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2008-05-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416537430
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Follows the author's tragic childhood in 1980s Iran, which was shaped by war, the Khomeini regime, and her work as a teen anti-propaganda activist, efforts for which she was brutally beaten and sentenced to death before a guard offered to save her and protect her family if she would convert to Islam and marry him. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

Set the Night on Fire

by Libby Fischer Hellmann
Set the Night on Fire
Author: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2010-11-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 098406768X
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Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. As she desperately tries to determine who is after her she uncovers information about the past that threatens to destroy her. An unforgettable portrait of Chicago during the turbulent late 1960s: the riots at the Democratic Convention, the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS, and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.

Captive in Iran

by Maryam Rostampour
Captive in Iran
Author: Maryam Rostampour
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1414382200
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Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh knew they were putting their lives on the line. Islamic laws in Iran forbade them from sharing their Christian beliefs, but in three years, they’d covertly put New Testaments into the hands of twenty thousand of their countrymen and started two secret house churches. In 2009, they were finally arrested and held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, a place where inmates are routinely tortured and executions are commonplace. In the face of ruthless interrogations, persecution, and a death sentence, Maryam and Marziyeh chose to take the radical—and dangerous—step of sharing their faith inside the very walls of the government stronghold that was meant to silence them. In Captive in Iran, two courageous Iranian women recount how God used their 259 days in Evin Prison to shine His light into one of the world’s darkest places, giving hope to those who had lost everything and showing love to those in despair.

Persian Girls

by Nahid Rachlin
Persian Girls
Author: Nahid Rachlin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2007-12-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101007702
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For many years, heartache prevented Nahid Rachlin from turning her sharp novelist's eye inward: to tell the story of how her own life diverged from that of her closest confidante and beloved sister, Pari. Growing up in Iran, both refused to accept traditional Muslim mores, and dreamed of careers in literature and on the stage. Their lives changed abruptly when Pari was coerced by their father into marrying a wealthy and cruel suitor. Nahid narrowly avoided a similar fate, and instead negotiated with him to pursue her studies in America. When Nahid received the unsettling and mysterious news that Pari had died after falling down a flight of stairs, she traveled back to Iran--now under the Islamic regime--to find out what happened to her truest friend, confront her past, and evaluate what the future holds for the heartbroken in a tale of crushing sorrow, sisterhood, and ultimately, hope.

A Bend In The River: 2 Sisters Struggle to Survive the Vietnam War

by Libby Fischer Hellmann
A Bend In The River: 2 Sisters Struggle to Survive the Vietnam War
Author: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Publisher: The Red Herrings Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2020-10-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1938733681
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A Bend in the River is #5 in the Revolution Sagas. IS THERE A WARNING MOMENT BEFORE LIFE SHATTERS INTO PIECES? In 1968 two young Vietnamese sisters flee to Saigon after their village on the Mekong River is attacked by American forces and burned to the ground. The sole survivors of the brutal massacre that killed their family, the sisters struggle to survive but become estranged, separated by sharply different choices and ideologies. Mai ekes out a living as a GI bar girl, but Tam’s anger festers, and she heads into jungle terrain to fight with the Viet Cong. "A polished segue into historical fiction…simple but elegant prose… offers nuance and depth to a war we thought we knew but did not entirely understand.” A.E. Feldman, BookTrib For nearly ten years, neither sister knows if the other is alive. Do they both survive the war? And if they do, can they mend their fractured relationship? Or are the wounds from their journeys too deep to heal "This is a beautifully done depiction of two very real young women living through incredible hardships and challenges. It's the Vietnam war, from not an anti-American, but from simply a Vietnamese perspective--the viewpoint of ordinary people trying to survive, not a particular ideological perspective. It's very moving, and I'm finding it staying in my head, actively." Elizabeth Carey, Reviewer If you enjoy historical novels of Ken Follett, Kristin Hannah, and Kate Quinn, you'll love Libby Hellmann's Compulsively Readable Thrillers. Scroll down and make sure to read them all!

Shamed

by Sarbjit Kaur Athwal
Shamed
Author: Sarbjit Kaur Athwal
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1448133971
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In 1998, Sarbjit Athwal was called by her husband to attend a family meeting. It looked like just another family gathering. An attractive house in west London, a large dining room, two brothers, their mother, one wife. But the subject they were discussing was anything but ordinary. At the head of the group sat the elderly mother. She stared proudly around, smiling at her children, then raised her hand for silence. ‘It’s decided then,’ the old lady announced. ‘We have to get rid of her.’ ‘Her’ was Surjit Athwal, Sarbjit’s sister-in-law. Within three weeks of that meeting, Surjit was dead: lured from London to India, drugged, strangled, and her body dumped in the Ravi River, never to be seen again. After the killing, risking her own life, Sarbjit fought secretly for justice for nine long, scared years. Eventually, with immense bravery, she became the first person within a murderer’s family ever to go into open court in an honour killing trial as the Prosecution’s key witness, and the first to waive her anonymity in such a trial. As a result of her testimony, the trial led to the first successful prosecution of an honour killing without the body ever being found. But her story doesn’t end there. Since the trial, her life has been threatened; her own husband arrested after an allegation of intimidation. Shamed is a story of fear and of horror – but also of immense courage, and a woman who risked everything to see that justice was done.

In the Land of Invisible Women

by Qanta Ahmed MD
In the Land of Invisible Women
Author: Qanta Ahmed MD
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1402220030
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A strikingly honest look into Islamic culture?—in particular women and Islam?—and what it takes for one woman to recreate herself in the land of invisible women. Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belong. What she discovers is vastly different. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a world apart, a land of unparalleled contrast. She finds rejection and scorn in the places she believed would most embrace her, but also humor, honesty, loyalty and love. And for Qanta, more than anything, it is a land of opportunity. Very few Islamic books for women give a firsthand account of what it's like to live in a place where Muslim women continue to be oppressed and treated as inferior to men. But if you want to learn more about the Islamic culture in an unflinchingly real way, this book is for you. "In this stunningly written book, a Western trained Muslim doctor brings alive what it means for a woman to live in the Saudi Kingdom. I've rarely experienced so vividly the shunning and shaming, racism and anti—Semitism, but the surprise is how Dr. Ahmed also finds tenderness at the tattered edges of extremism, and a life—changing pilgrimage back to her Muslim faith." — Gail Sheehy