Discover New York Times bestseller Samira Ahmed's romantic, sweeping
adventure through the streets of Paris told in alternating narratives
that bridge centuries, continents, and the lives of two young Muslim
women fighting to write their own stories.
Smash the patriarchy. Eat all the pastries.
It's 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-ex-boyfriend is 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 Khayyam's 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 Alex, a très charmant teen descendant of
Alexandre Dumas--Khayyam searches for a rumored lost painting,
uncovering a connection between Leila and Alexandre Dumas, Eugène
Delacroix, and Lord Byron that may have been erased from history.
Echoing across centuries, Leila and Khayyam's lives intertwine, and as
one woman's long-forgotten life is uncovered, another's is transformed.
