Jamila Mikhail’s The Moonlit Rose of Isfahan is a searing historical romance with a setting that captures the atmosphere of the brutal Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Reza and Zahra Azad’s three-week honeymoon is interrupted when Reza is conscripted into the Iranian army together with his brother Hossein. The couple has been separated for eight years, and Zahra devotes her time to tending to their garden as an act of defiance. She also writes letters that are infused with Rumi’s poetry. For his part, Reza survives the Khuzestan trenches, a blast that kills his brother in 1983, and chemical attacks. When a ceasefire finally happens, Reza comes home a broken man with PTSD. Can they rebuild their life and the trust that once bound them together?

The Moonlit Rose of Isfahan took my breath away, as it can be read as a symbol of the struggle of Iran for survival. Reza is a complex character whose idealism is shattered by the grim reality of war. The author paints a vivid image of a world ravaged by the violence of war and a love that refuses to die, and I loved how the garden becomes a symbol of resilience. Zahra’s work is symbolic of the fact that we can always plant seeds in a new cycle of life. I was captivated by the lush, sensory prose, steeped in the varied textures of Iranian culture: the scent of saffron and rosewater, the taste of ghormeh sabzi, and verses of Hafez. Jamila Mikhail’s work has the kind of exploration of the triumphant human spirit and emotional devastation one finds in Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale.

In Jamila Mikhail’s The Moonlit Rose of Isfahan, Zahra Azad opens the gate to Reza, the husband taken from her three weeks after their wedding, when the Iran-Iraq War sent him to the front. For eight years, Zahra has kept their house, garden, letters, and two cats ready for his return. Reza comes home alive, but the soldier who enters has shrapnel scars, nightmares from Ahvaz, and grief for Hossein, the brother who died beside him. As the ceasefire changes the country around them, Zahra and Reza must learn how to share a marriage interrupted almost before it began. Their days move between private tenderness and public rebuilding as Reza looks for engineering work repairing Iran’s damaged bridges, while Zahra considers studying literature before they try for the children they once planned.

Jamila Mikhail’s The Moonlit Rose of Isfahan is an extremely thoughtful novel with a lot going for it. It is a methodical, slow-burning look at two people who must reconcile who they were with who they have become. The author uses daily life to lean into this: Reza is disoriented by civilian clothes, while Zahra notices table scratches left by years of solitary meals. Zahra is easy to like because her love has room for truth. She refuses Reza’s apology after a nightmare, treating his grief as natural, and is willing to see that their restored marriage still needs time. Reza is equally likeable, with a gentleness that has miraculously survived military life. The author breathes life into every setting, from the Shiraz wedding garden, glowing with mirror light around candles beneath trees, to Persepolis, standing in aged stone at twilight. Readers drawn to historical romance set inside Iranian family life will enjoy this book. Recommended.