While other Iranian girls of the early twentieth century cook, sew, and dream of a family, Gohar climbs trees, reads books, and fantasizes about traveling. But when her forbidden correspondence with a local boy is discovered, the prospect of banishment alarms the fatherless Gohar. She welcomes the protection of Saleh Mirza, a powerful nobleman who adopts her, and accepts his choice of husband for her: a 55-year-old politician, Haji. Aged just 14, she vows to enter her marital home in a white chador and exit in a white shroud. But fate has much more in store for her. She risks her life—and her marriage—to join activists seeking modernization and sovereignty, inciting the wrath of colonial powers: Russia and England. As Gohar struggles between tradition and modernity, between her vows and her attraction to a man she’s never spoken to, Russia invades northern Iran, and everything changes. Born and raised in Tehran in a family with its feet in the past and its head in the future, Afarin Bellisario led a successful career in high-tech and international business in the US after earning her PhD from MIT.