Shameful secrets, stifled memories, shattered dreams. Azadeh was born in Tehran, but she came of age at seventeen when she traveled across the world alone and penniless to free herself from abuse and poverty and to find the life of which her beloved mother was robbed. She was determined to educate herself and to reassemble her family in America to save them from their tragic destiny, but she quickly discovered that fairness and peace were as elusive in the West as they were in the homeland she had left behind. It would take decades of implausible hardship and two generations of torment for Azadeh to find her own inner peace, but that, too, would be tenuous and short-lived. The immigration of her kin to America, following the Iranian revolution, unleashes the old demons to usurp her calm and security. Now, once again, Azadeh must rise from the ashes of her shattered dream to claim her peace and dignity. It all began when her mother, Esther, was sold at the age of thirteen...