The Stationery Shop

January 1, 2019

In 1953 Tehran, Roya finds solace in the book and stationery shop owned by Mr. Fakhri, who introduces her to handsome, idealistic Bahman. They fall in love, but when Bahman fails to meet her on the night before their wedding, just as a coup d'état explodes, she loses him forever. Or so she thinks. Following the award-winning Together Tea; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

April 15, 2019
Sixty years after her first love failed to meet her in a market square, Roya Khanom Archer finally has the chance to see him. But will he break her heart again? Back in 1953, she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl, raised in a progressive home in Tehran, where her father encouraged Roya and her sister, Zari, to take advantage of the recent reforms that allowed women to go to university. While he hoped she might become a chemist, Roya loved escaping into novels, which sent her to Mr. Fakhri's stationery and book store every Tuesday afternoon. There she first sees Bahman Aslan, a breathless young man already well-known as a political activist. Kamali (Together Tea, 2013) sets Roya and Bahman's love against the tumultuous days of Mohammad Mossadegh's rise and fall as prime minister of Iran, infusing their affair with political passion and an increasingly frantic sense of the shortness of time. Tuesday after Tuesday, the couple falls more deeply in love, and Bahman soon proposes marriage to Roya. While Roya's family welcomes Bahman--although Zari warns Roya that his heart cannot be trusted--Bahman's emotionally volatile mother refuses to accept the engagement, because she has already chosen Shahla, the daughter of a man closely allied with the shah, for her son. Roya determines to weather her future mother-in-law's storms, but when Bahman and his family disappear, she can only turn to Mr. Fakhri for help. Although he cannot tell Roya where Bahman has gone, Mr. Fakhri offers to exchange secret letters between the lovers. The plan works, and the two even plan to elope, but Bahman does not show up in Sepah Square. Sixty years later, Bahman's confession will finally expose the secrets that cast shadows over the lovers so long ago. A sweeping romantic tale of thwarted love.

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August 5, 2019
In this tender story of lifelong love, Kamali (Together Tea) moves from 2013 New England to violence in 1953 Tehran as citizens, a new Prime Minister, and the Shah of Iran clash. In 2013, Roya is 77 years old, nearing the end of her life with her American husband, when she discovers her fiancé from when she was growing up in Tehran is living in a retirement home nearby. She begins to relive her first meeting with young Bahman 60 years earlier in a small Tehran stationery shop. As is true with Roya’s father, Bahman is an avid supporter of the new Prime Minister Mossadegh, but Bahman takes it further with dangerous activism. The love that blossoms between the two 17-year-olds is intense and true, but Bahman’s mother is determined to direct her son’s interests away from Roya. It’s only with the help of Mr. Fahkri, who allows the young lovers privacy in his stationery shop, that the romance continues until a final misunderstanding; the couple is separated by expectations that they enter arranged marriages, as well as the violence that erupts in the streets when Mossadegh is overthrown. The loss of love and changing worlds is vividly captured by Kamali; time and circumstances kept these lovers apart, but nothing diminishes their connection. Readers will be swept away.

April 1, 2019

Roya Kayhani meets Bahman Aslan in a stationery shop in Tehran in 1953; both are 17. The owner, Mr. Fakhri, dispenses foreign-language books as well as antimonarchist polemics along with the poetry of Rumi. Sharing the poetry and letters passed between them by Mr. Fakhri inside the books, the couple fall in love and become engaged. Iran is moving toward democracy and modernization in 1953, but a coup by the forces of the Shah shuts down those hopes. Now, 60 years later, Roya is married to Walter Archer and lives outside Boston; Bahman is in a nursing home not far away. What happened to their love and the future of their country? Slowly moving through the budding love story, readers unearth secrets about those close to the pair and how, as Iranian belief dictates, one's destiny is already inscribed on one's forehead at birth. VERDICT The unfurling stories in Kamali's sophomore novel (after Together Tea) will stun readers as the aromas of Persian cooking wafting throughout convince us that love can last a lifetime. For those who enjoy getting caught up in romance while discovering unfamiliar history of another country. [See Prepub Alert, 12/3/18.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2019
In 1953 Tehran, seventeen-year-old Roya meets the idealistic, politically active Bahman in a stationery shop, and the two quickly fall in love and become engaged, much to the disapproval of Bahman's class-conscious mother. They plan to marry in a civil ceremony, but a coup d'etat on the day of their wedding scuttles their plans, and Roya later receives a letter from Bahman ending their engagement abruptly. She immigrates to America to attend college shortly thereafter, marrying an American and settling in Boston; it is there, sixty years later, that she meets Bahman again and the two former lovers are able to at last piece together the truth behind their doomed romance and the forces that kept them apart. Kamali (Together Tea, 2013) paints an evocative portrait of 1950s Iran and its political upheaval, and she cleverly writes the heartbreak of Roya and Bahman's romance to mirror the tragic recent history of their country. Simultaneously briskly paced and deeply moving, this will appeal to fans of Khaled Hosseini and should find a wide audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)