The saffron kitchen /

After his mother dies, young Saeed travels from Iran to London to live with his aunt Maryam. But the death of her sister, the last of her family, has pitched Maryam into despair and rekindled long-suppressed rage. After a dreadful scene with her pregnant daughter, Sara, Maryam, who has never been fully present in her marriage to a kind Englishman, flees to Iran, her heart's abode. Crowther, who, like Sara, is the daughter of an Iranian mother and a British father, slips back in time to tell the grim story of Maryam's forbidden girlhood love and the barbaric punishment her politically powerful father meted out, thus unveiling the cruelty of relentlessly misogynist customs. But when Sara, who is happily married to her Englishman, journeys for the first time to her mother's homeland, she discovers that while little has changed for women, beauty and generosity are part and parcel of Iranian life, as is an unexpected form of freedom. Despite some contrivances, Crowther's debut is spellbinding, and her cross-cultural perception and empathy are illuminating and affecting. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist

Crowther's debut novel paints a vivid double portrait of a spirited mother-daughter pair, first- and second-generation immigrants to England from Iran whose relationship grows turbulent when shadows from the mother's past begin to overwhelm her. This beautifully produced reading starts with the bright voice of Ariana Fraval as Sara, the daughter, but it is soon overtaken by the darker, melodically accented tones of Mehr Mansuri as Maryam, Sara's mother. Maryam returns to the tiny village where she grew up to come to terms with her past, especially with the ghost of her father and with her first love, Ali, who has been waiting for her return. As Maryam journeys through Iran and back into her memories, and then induces Sara to come too, Mansuri's voice takes on myriad emotional shades, from wonder and delight to sharp regret and painful uncertainty. Intervals of Persian-inflected music helps set an exotic yet contemplative mood. Fraval and Mansuri's authentic pronunciation of the occasional foreign words allows listeners to be swept up by Crowther's lovely, haunting story even more easily than when reading it for themselves. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover. (Reviews, Oct. 2). (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Crowther's uneven debut, split between London and Iran, traces the journey a mother and daughter make to close the distance between their lives. A tragic accident begins the tale, unraveling life-as-usual for Maryam and her daughter Sara. When Maryam hits her nephew Saeed (who, following the death of his mother in Iran, now lives in London with Maryam and husband Edward), she sends the frightened boy running to a bridge. Sara chases him, and in the struggle, miscarries her child. Before Sara even leaves the hospital, Maryam is off to Iran, guilty, disconsolate, unable to sustain the fragile patchwork of her past and present. Back in Iran, in the rural village where she spent idyllic summers, she reflects on the troubled year that the Shah was returned to power and she was banished from home. With her father, a wealthy general, high-spirited Maryam and her two sisters live a privileged life. She even has an English tutor, young Ali, who is teaching her Matthew Arnold's classic poem, "Dover Beach." Her nanny Fatima binds her breasts to keep her seemingly girlish, but her father is considering marriage for her while Maryam dreams of travel and a life away from her father's restrictions. An unavoidable and innocent indiscretion with Ali dishonors her father, who then disowns her. Maryam becomes a nurse, goes to England and marries sweet Edward, while she recites "Dover Beach" to the sea, hoping her voice will reach Ali. While Maryam indulges in her reveries and reconnects with Ali, Sara and Edward attempt to get on with life in England. Edward has given up, believing Maryam will never return--in fact, was never really his--and Sara, now caring for Saeed, tries to understand why a lost childhood in Iran is more vital to her mother than the ensuing 30 years in England with the family she created. Indeed, it is a question readers will ask--and that Sara poses when she eventually travels to Iran--but one that Maryam is unable to adequately answer. Though Crowther builds an evocative portrait of Iran and the painful pull of two cultures, too much of the novel hinges on an overly enigmatic character and her vague longing for the indefinable idea of home. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.