I will be honest: the plot didn’t do much for me except at the beginning and end. But woven through all the pages was an incredibly vibrant depiction of Tehran, and Jewish Tehran in particular. Beautiful prose.

Okay, I went into this fully knowing there will be cheating (from the woman's side) but I was under the impression she was in a forced, loveless (even dare I say abusive?) marriage, which kinda sorta makes their affair ok? I don't know, don't come after me 😭

But what I didn't expect was the MC having a wife (and was she pregnant, if I recall correctly? It's been a while since read this but I still remembered I was horrified) while he consciously formed feelings for the daughter of the general.

I get this is supposed to be a story of perseverance, love, magic, lust, whatever the blurb said but that part just made me stop and drop the book altogether.

The story takes place in Iran, mostly in the Jewish Quarter of Tehran, during WWII. This would have been a good book to read on Shabbat, but as I was gifted an e-copy instead of paper, I could not. The story is interesting and the descriptions quite extensive, showing much research on the part of the author. The characters are well developed, the good, the bad and the ugly. The main characters are dentist and widower, Dr. Soleiman Yaran, his precosous daughter, Nada, his superstitious aunt, the evil anti-semitic Governor General, his wife Velvet and his eunuch, Tulip. Yarn was trained in France, but finds himself called upon to perform medicine far beyond dentistry. The author wove her story into history, but parts became tedious to me and I found myself scanning some pages, wondering when this book would end. But that's me.

I received an ARC from NetGalley.com. The is my unbiased and voluntary review.

This was a very emotional and heart-wrenching read. I especially loved the characters and thought they were well-developed. I also loved the author’s attention to detail and was meticulously researched. This novel is filled with romance , action, and suspense. I recommend this for fans of Kate Quinn!

Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is a historical fiction novel set in Iran during WWII. While I liked the premise of the story I found some of it not to be believable. The doctor’s young daughter is supposedly speaking in complete sentences at the age of 1 and her comprehension of ideas is not something you would really get from someone so young. Some of the scenes just don’t seem to jive with the time period nor with the ways the jews were living in Iran which makes it seem like it is 50 years earlier.
While the doctor, Tulip, and Velvet are all characters that are well defined it was hard to get a handle on the doctor’s aunt, daughter and next door neighbor. The aunt became very stereotypical of what you would think a superstitious woman was like and not very realistic of the times. At times it was difficult to follow this story.

Have the tissues handy with this one. It was a good story but it was a tearjerker as it was set against the backdrop of WWII.

Historical fiction is one of my favourite genres and it is because of books like this one. It was well written with a compelling storyline and incredibly well developed characters, some of which I fell in love with. This focuses on World War 2 in a setting that I don't really think about when it comes to the holocaust and so forth and I will definitely be doing so more from now on. I couldn't put it down and I didn't want it to end.

I love reading historical fiction about a period about which I know nothing. This is such a book. A beautiful and moving story about a French educated Jewish doctor in WWII Iran. Dr Yaran is a doctor and dentist who is called to serve the young Queen, the wife of the Shah who was basically placed on the throne by the British who made his father abdicate and exile to South Africa. The same Shah who fled in the revolution. There are many wonderful characters and as I was reading it I could not imagine how it would end.
The politics are complicated and we see the Tehran conference with Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt meeting and the Iranians not happy about it.
The problems of the Jews in Iran, as well as the beautiful culture are shown to great effect. This is a book I plan to share with my bookclubs. I also plan to read more of her books, 2 of which are on my TBR shelves. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy.

Set in Iran in the 1940s, Love and War in the Jewish Quarter captures Jewish life and culture as it existed in tense contest and precarious harmony with and within the majority, ruling Islamic community. On the fringes of World War II, but dangerously within the political reach of the Nazi regime and Soviet pressures, Iranian Jews must balance their interactions with Muslims even more carefully than they always had. The Allies are a distant factor; they are not a guarantee of safety as news of Hitler’s internment of Jews creeps ever closer.

It is in this tension that Jewish dentist, Dr Soleiman Yaran, finds himself. He is trapped in the conflicting intersection between his Jewish community and roots, the powerful Iranian royal family and governors of the land, his family, and his personal desires. The novel revolves around his attempt to unravel and reconcile his responsibilities and his personal happiness. Embedded in these tensions are deeper, more global undercurrents: as a medical professional schooled in Paris, Yaran also finds himself — as an agent of a Westernized modernity — at odds with ethnic, religious traditions, Jewish and Muslim alike. The war is not the only conflict highlighted in this novel; friction also exists in culture between the traditional past and the modern present. There is a shedding of superstition and tradition in favor of new technologies and practices, beliefs about the roles of men and women in their communities. Gendered expectations, visible through the performances of wife, husband, child, lover, parent, elder, and filial piety, duty to one’s community, and duty to one’s self are strong themes throughout.

Mossanen delivers this internal and historical drama through a romantic storyline, but readers will be disappointed if they expect a historical romance, for a romance it is not. This is a love story about love in the real and brutal world, where individuals are buffeted by cultural and community expectations and traditions. Its realistic setting and story are the novel’s appeal; the unpredictability of life will keep you, Reader, on your toes throughout.

The characters too, are fascinating — multi-faceted and tangible — because they are reflections of real internal conflicts. They are flawed and spurred on to their actions by subjective logics, some which make little sense, except when viewed within the larger landscape of this history and cultural context. The villains in this novel are human in their cruelties. The heroes and heroines are human, unable to manifest impossible archetypes.

A worthy read for all fans of historical fiction of the 20th century.

i don’t have a whole lot to say about this one — it’s just fine, and the idea of getting to know what life was like for jews living in iran during the twentieth century was certainly interesting. dora levy mossanen’s writing is pretty solid, and the story began in a really fascinating way . . . but the romance just kind of fell flat for me, and i basically just found the characters a bit too simplistic for my taste. it wasn’t a terrible read, but it wasn’t exactly captivating either.