'As heart-wrenching as it is achingly beautiful' Sadeqa Johnson, author of The House of Eve
'Heartbreaking and life affirming' Adrienne Brodeur, author of Little Monsters
'Courage, friendship, loyalty, hardship, love – this novel has everything' Mary Beth Keane, Ask Again, Yes

From the author of The Stationery Shop of Tehran, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.


Someday, you and me – we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who make things happen.

1950, Tehran. Seven-year-old Ellie lives in comfort, wanting for nothing, until the death of her father brings a drastic change in fortune. At school, she meets Homa. Together, the girls
play games, wander through the Grand Bazaar and share their ambitions of becoming ‘lion women’ and the first generation of women fully working in Iran.

Opportunity allows Ellie and her mother to return to their bourgeois life, and Ellie’s memories of Homa fade. But years later, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

As the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences. 

Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transform our lives.


Praise for Marjan Kamali

‘Evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful… This book broke my heart again and again’ Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light

‘A beautifully immersive tale … brings to life a lost and complex world and the captivating characters who once called it home’ Jasmin Darznik, author of The Good Daughter and Song of a Captive Bird

‘What a pleasure – a novel that is all at once masterfully plotted, beautifully written, and populated by characters who are arresting, lovable and so real’ Elinor Lipman, author of Turpentine Lane

‘A sweeping romantic tale of thwarted love’ Kirkus Reviews

‘An enchanting romance’  My Weekly

‘I! Am! Obsessed! With! This! Book!’ COSMOPOLITAN.COM