Falling in love is magical. And when it happens to you in the fairy tale way, you end up feeling blessed. Betty Mahmoody fell in love and felt quite much the same. She was living her fairy-tale life with her Iranian husband Moody, who was a doctor and their little daughter Mahtob, when the first signs of a brewing storm unsettled this perfection.
After seven years of being married to each other and after seven long years of being enstranged from his family, would she not agree to a small two week vacation to Iran? Just for her husband’s sake? Just to acquaint herself with his family? Just so that his ageing mother can feast her eyes on a granddaughter she has just heard of and never met? Would she not do this- a small two week vacation- for the man she loved?
Of course she would! But as she packed her bags for a two week vacation to Iran, quelling snaking doubts and little niggling suspicions, little did she know that she was packing for a two year trip into one of her worst nightmares!
A nightmare which begins right in the aircraft, when the man who was her husband of seven years instructs her "We have to hide our american passports, if they find them, they will take them away from us..."
Her instincts, which urge her to flee the land before she sets foor on it war with the man she loves and eventually love wins and she alights in to a land she cant wait to take off from. Throughout the journey the only thoughts which crossed her mind were:
What was an American woman doing flying into a country that had the most openly hostile attitude towards americans of any nation in the world?
She sought comfort in the thought that it was to be only a two week vacation.
A thought which was becoming alarmingly distant as the two weeks were drawing to a close. As distant as her husband, who was becoming more of a stranger and less of the doctor she had fallen in love with.
A man who had adored her, was also the one who stood in front of her and screamed , "I do not have to let you go home. You have to do whatever I say and you have to stay here. You are here for the rest of your life. Do you understand? You are not leaving Iran. You are here until you die."
With the only man she trusted, now as her sworn enemy, she solemnly decided to get herself and her daughter out of Iran at the earliest. Her passports had been confiscated and she was now a mere lady in a land dominated by males. There could be no possible victory. But where there was hope, there was always a possibility...
Her first hope was an escape route through Pakistan. While plans fell into place it was difficult to mask her escalation from her husband and his family. WIth her daughter enrolled at the government school and she being treated like scum, this hope filled her dreams and kept her alive.
Only to discover that they could possibly be smugglers who rape and pillage...
Another escape was easy, but she could not accomplish it with her daughter.. Betty could not comprehend leaving her daughter behind in the clutches of this nightmare.
Eventually two years later, she set with her daughter into a blinding storm, which see them to freedom.
A book which will reduce a mother to tears, yet fill her heart with pride. A book which will make you want to wring the neck of any overbearing violent male. A book which will make you want to keep all the women and daughters of the world tucked away from the vicious male thoughts...
A book which will keep you awake for many a nights long after you have finished reading it....