The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

The Blood of Flowers

It's a story of a girl, and we never learn her name. She is born in a little village in Persia in the 17th century. When her father dies she and her mother must make a choice or else they will starve to death so they leave their village and heads for the capital. There lives a half-brother to her father and they have never met him. But he takes them in, but soon they see that they are more treated like servants than anything else.

But this 14 year old girl has a gift, she weaves beautiful carpets, and her uncle works for the Shah. He is skilled in the way to make patterns, and the girl wants to be as good as him because so far she is good, but she is no master. Her work is poor, but she improves under his hand. If she had only been a boy.

Most of all she wants her mother and her to be free, and when she is offered a temporary marriage, a sigheh, with a wealthy man she is torn. Lose her honour and virginity, or try to make a better life for herself.


Anita Amirrezvani has a way of writing, and I am captured by the book, and the girl with no name. But I do think the sex scenes were a little too many, and they made me dislike the girl. I have read other books with girls who fall so suddenly for someone in that way, and I never did like it. Other than that I liked this book and I couldn't put it down. I loved the history, and glimpses of an age gone. I never thought I could be that interested in how carpets are made.

The book has a rhythm, and she weaves the threads into a beautiful story. Worth noticing are the 8 old Persian stories that are told in the book, either by the girls mother or by herself. The create a sort of magic that isn't lost.

I do want to read more of her, but this is a her first book and hopefully more are coming. If they are set in that time and place the better. She is an author to look out after.