The Stationery Shop [B1268]

2020 french flap PB with deckled edges, in excellent condition. From the award-nominated author of Together Tea and The Lion Women of Tehran, a poignant novel that explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate. Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri's neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink. Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer-handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi's poetry-and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran. A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts-a result of the coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on-to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England-until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A tangled story of lifelong love and family that I could not put down."; "The Stationery Shop is one of those books that quietly breaks your heart while also reminding you of the beauty in love, loss, and second chances."; "Very rarely do books bring me to tears, but man this one is HEART-WRENCHING. An intricate tale of love lost & found again across generations, sooo highly recommend."