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A Bitter Veil

by Libby Fischer Hellmann (Goodreads Author)

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 · rating details · 208 ratings · 62 reviews

It all began with a line of Persian poetry . . .

Anna and Nouri, both studying in Chicago, fall in love despite their very
different backgrounds. Anna, who has never been close to her parents, is
more than happy to return with Nouri to his native Iran, to be embraced by
his wealthy family. Beginning their married life together in 1978, their world
is abruptly turned upside down...more

Paperback, 314 pages

Published April 15th 2012 by Allium Press of Chicago (first published March 22nd 2012)

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Community Reviews

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May 04, 2013 Patrick Balester rated it 5 of 5 stars

For A Suspenseful Story In An Exotic Locale, Look Behind A BITTER VEIL

Libby Fischer Hellmann has done something remarkable with her latest mystery novel; written a gripping tale of betrayal and murder and placed it in an international setting with an ancient culture that most Americans know little about. And she's done it without relying on stereotypes.

A Bitter Veil tells the story of Anna, an American who falls in love with Nouri, an Iranian foreign exchange student. The story is set in the lat...more For A Suspenseful Story In An Exotic Locale, Look Behind A BITTER VEIL

Libby Fischer Hellmann has done something remarkable with her latest mystery novel; written a gripping tale of betrayal and murder and placed it in an international setting with an ancient culture that most Americans know little about. And she's done it without relying on stereotypes.

A Bitter Veil tells the story of Anna, an American who falls in love with Nouri, an Iranian foreign exchange student. The story is set in the late 70's before the Islamic Revolution, when Iran send thousands of students to the United States to be educated as part of a modernization effort.

With his charm, good looks and a healthy dose of Persian love poetry, Nouri wins Anna's heart. They return to Iran where Anna struggles, and eventually succeeds in fitting into a strange and vibrant culture. But after the Shah is overthrown, changes begin to sweep through the country, affecting not just Anna, but all the people of Iran. The Islamic Revolution, like the French and Russian revolutions before it, begins with high hopes and aspirations but eventually descends into paranoia and tyranny. Hassan, Nouri's oldest and closest friend, joins the Revolutionary Guards. Even Nouri is caught up in the chaos, and starts treating Anna with suspicion, demanding she dress more conservatively and obey his orders without question. He often disappears without explanation. Anna, like many Iranians around her, decides to flee the country. But before she can put her plan into motion, she is arrested for murder.

As an American in a foreign country, she has almost no allies, no one to believe her. Ironically, Hassan, who has become become swept up in religious fervor and the revolution, is convinced that Anna is innocent, and struggles to find a way to help her.

This story has all the elements of a first rate mystery. Despite the foreign setting, Libby paints her characters with a full palette, both the good and the bad, showing the warmth and beauty of Persian culture, along with the tears and blood caused by the Revolution. Anna and Nouri are far from the only victims.

This tale will stay with you long after the final page is turned.(less)

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Mar 22, 2013 Gaele rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-book, independent-reviw, review-reads

Audio Book Review:

I actually ended up listening to this all in one straight shot, as every time I went to put it down there was an event unfolding that needed me to know its resolution. This is one of those stories that while it deals with the near-past, the events and understanding brought forward in the book will provide readers / listeners with a better grasp on the complexities of current world situations.

Anna is an interesting character, one that I found rather needy and more than slightly...more Audio Book Review:

I actually ended up listening to this all in one straight shot, as every time I went to put it down there was an event unfolding that needed me to know its resolution. This is one of those stories that while it deals with the near-past, the events and understanding brought forward in the book will provide readers / listeners with a better grasp on the complexities of current world situations.

Anna is an interesting character, one that I found rather needy and more than slightly naïve, which worked to her detriment for a large part of the story. Nouri is also a well-defined character, who is practicing the often-common phenomenon of Americanizing his behaviour and attitudes while you are away from parental control and societal constraints while you are a student abroad. Early on in the story, we see flashes of Nouri’s ingrained attitude toward a woman’s place, although Anna misses every signal, more enamored of the idea of love and belonging than actually creating a solid relationship.

As the story progresses and Anna attempts to adapt to her position as a wife of a Muslim man living in Tehran, their relationship is slowly fraying because she is starting to see the reality of the relationship and looking to question, when Nouri will entertain none of her questions and often is abusive and controlling of her every move.

All the while, the country is in turmoil and the various factions are struggling for control. Nothing and nowhere is truly safe, settled or even secure. It becomes a gripping tale of multiple fractures in the foundations of relationships, families and countries.

Impeccably researched, with a clever inset of a crime with a highly improbable (from the outside) suspect, dramatics from family and events, a solid inclusion of Farsi and other Islamic traditions this book is laden with information as it leads you through the plot. Diane Pirone Gelman is a marvelous narrator, with pitch, tone and clarity of the tongue twisting words in Farsi all serve to immerse the listener into the story.

Libby Fischer Hellman has done it again: provided a story that is no holds barred, researched it thoroughly and provided a plot that keeps you engaged and interested in what happens next. This is the perfect listen for your commute or a long journey: 9 hours flew by from start to end.

I received an AudioBook version from the author for purpose of honest review for the Heard Word at I am, Indeed. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

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Jun 10, 2012 Kate Policani rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: win

Anna is in love. It is 1977 and Nouri Samedi is alluring and wonderful, sharing her beliefs about society and her passion for change. She is delighted to marry him and move with him to Iran to finally become part of a family. Leaving her Chicago home and her father, she travels to Iran with her new husband to learn a new way of life and a new culture.
Anna and Nouri know that the nation is on the brink of revolution. But their fervent belief that the country is headed for a peaceful transition t...more

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May 27, 2012 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read A BITTER VEIL, by Libby Fischer Hellmann, in practically one sitting. The novel begins in a frigid Chicago winter, when Anna Schroder and Nouri Samedi meet by chance in the Persian literature stacks of a local bookstore. Anna is buying books for her Middle Eastern literature class. It’s an instant attraction that’s sealed by Nouri reciting lines of Rumi to Anna.

Both are students: Anna, from Virginia, is pursuing her master’s degree in English and Nouri has come to the U.S. from Iran to st...more I read A BITTER VEIL, by Libby Fischer Hellmann, in practically one sitting. The novel begins in a frigid Chicago winter, when Anna Schroder and Nouri Samedi meet by chance in the Persian literature stacks of a local bookstore. Anna is buying books for her Middle Eastern literature class. It’s an instant attraction that’s sealed by Nouri reciting lines of Rumi to Anna.

Both are students: Anna, from Virginia, is pursuing her master’s degree in English and Nouri has come to the U.S. from Iran to study engineering. Within a few months, they’ve fallen in love. Theirs is not an easy soft-focus Hallmark kind of love. It’s a desperate and needy love, where they can barely let each other out of their sight and cling to each other as if addicted. Neither of them seem to have the internal strength to navigate life on their own.

The backdrop for the novel is the late 1970’s, during the unrest leading up to Iranian Revolution. Nouri joins the local student group protesting the Shah; Anna soon follows. When Anna finishes her degree, they marry and move to Tehran, where Nouri wants to help rebuild his country. Anna, ashamed of her own family secrets, is welcomed into Nouri’s with open arms. In spite of her discomfort with the opulence of the Iranian elite, Anna, at last, feels like she’s found a home.

But, as Libby Fischer Hellman shows in chilling detail, the country soon slips off its axis. The Shah is overthrown and flees the country. Ayatollah Khomeini takes over and forms the Republican Guard. Women are relegated to second-class citizens, under the rule of their husband or closest male relative. Men are forced to conform. All traces of the Shah must be eradicated; the upper-class is especially vulnerable. Executions are common and anti-American sentiment is rampant. In a culture where family is all you’ve got, Anna quickly becomes a liability.

I’m sure that Libby Fisher Hellman meticulously researched and plotted A BITTER VEIL before writing a single word. That shows: it’s a tight, seamless journey from the first words to the last. But her language also captivated me. The novel is literary, melodic, and seductive. We can feel Anna and Nouri falling in love. When Anna falls in love with her adopted country, we feel that too. And when life turns upside-down, we experience the repression, the isolation, and the terror.

This book is a must-read on so many levels. It’s a standout work of historical fiction. In places, it reads like a first-hand account of the Iranian revolution. It’s also a page-turning thriller wrapped up in a love story. A BITTER VEIL is so compelling, you’ll have a hard time putting it down.
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May 17, 2012 Sheila rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: current_issues, cultural, romance, relationships, mystery, suspense

American Anna meets Iranian Nouri in a bookstore in Chicago where they’re both students. Sensitive and artistic, Anna soon falls for Nouri’s reading of Iranian poetry. Meanwhile Nouri joins protests against the Shah of Iran. When Nouri decides to return home to a job, Anna agrees to marry and go with him, but the timing proves disastrous as Iran falls under anti-American leadership, the newly free venting their fury on the upper classes with random arrests and even torture.

Author Libby Fischer H...more

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May 07, 2012 Gloria Feit rated it 4 of 5 stars

In a departure from her popular Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis series, Libby Fischer Hellmann leaves Chicago with a fascinating and obviously well-researched novel set at the time of the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970’s. Her protagonist, Anna Schroder, an English major at the University of Chicago, also leaves that town, in January of 1977, after a passionate romance with Nouri Samedi, a handsome engineering student who quotes poetry to her and sweeps her off her feet. The reader knows lit...more In a departure from her popular Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis series, Libby Fischer Hellmann leaves Chicago with a fascinating and obviously well-researched novel set at the time of the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970’s. Her protagonist, Anna Schroder, an English major at the University of Chicago, also leaves that town, in January of 1977, after a passionate romance with Nouri Samedi, a handsome engineering student who quotes poetry to her and sweeps her off her feet. The reader knows literally from the opening pages that things will not end well.

Nouri is the only son whose parents are wealthy and well-connected. Anna longs for a loving family – her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother moved back to her native Paris; her German father, a scientist – with whom she hadn’t had contact in a long time - is in America. When she and Nouri decide to marry despite their apparent cultural differences, they move to Tehran, where unrest and demonstrations against the Shah are beginning. Within a few short months, the military government resigns, the Shah is forced out, and Ayatollah Khomeini and the Republican Guard have taken over. They want nothing less than to purge Iran of all traces of the shah. The repercussions, for any opposed to the new rule of law, especially among those from America, the “Great Satan,” are profound. Anna is told by an Iranian bookseller, who is forced to keep hidden away any counter-revolutionary poetry or books by such as e.e. cummings or William Shakespeare not already confiscated, “We have been victims for years. Invaders, the shah, now the revolution. It is all the same.”

The background of that area of the world and the “complicated history of Islam” provided by the author is extremely interesting. Nouri, discussing the volatile situation with his childhood friend, says “yes, we opposed the shah. But our goal was a democratic government, not an Islamist republic. Don’t you remember?” We are told that the people “long for Iran to create a parliamentary democracy. It would be a blessing for the people of Iran, the Middle East, the entire world. But Khomeini has made it clear that’s not his priority.” Things reach a fevered pitch, and Anna doesn’t know who can be trusted.

Those looking for the mystery element usually found in this author’s books will not be disappointed, for there is a murder and a surrounding mystery along the way. The book is completely absorbing, and is recommended.
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May 02, 2012 Deana rated it 5 of 5 stars

A Bitter Veil is a fantastic read and will grab you from the first chapter. I will start by saying that this isn’t typically a book that I would read but I am glad I did. I ignored my husband and kids for 2 nights because I couldn’t put it down.
The story takes place in the late 70’s and follows a couple, Anna and Nouri, from, the beginning of their relationship when the pair is in college to marriage and a move to Iran where Anna enjoys the life of her dreams with her husband and his family. The...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

Historical fiction covering the unrest in the 1970s that led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran's dynasty and the establishment of an Islamic republic under the Ayatollah Khomeini . Anna, a young American woman falls in love with a Nouri, rich Iranian student who, despite his background, believes that Iran would benefit from democracy. They get married and move to Iran where his father, businessman in the oil industry and with links to the Shah, gets him a job w...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Teann rated it 5 of 5 stars

A Bitter Veil
Libby Fischer Hellman
Allium Press
April 15, 2012
Paperback
ISBN: 978-0983193814
$16.99
316 pages

For many of us growing up as children in the middle of the twentieth century, we expected to have our
dreams fulfilled, love, marriage, education, a successful career, …

Hindsight always gives a person an advantage. However, in A Bitter Veil, an American girl, Anna, meets
an Iranian boy, Nouri, who is studying engineering in Chicago. They meet in a bookstore and begin to
discuss Persian poetr...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Kathleen Hagen added it

A Bitter Veil, by Libby Fischer Hellman, Narrated by Diane Pirone Gelman, Produced by Libby Fischer Hellman Publishing, downloaded from audible.com.

Anna and Nouri, both college students studying in Chicago, fall in love despite their very different backgrounds.Anna grew up in strange circumstances. Her father was a scientist from Nazi Germany repatriated to the U.S. after the war because the government wanted his scientific knowledge. Her mother, a citizen from India, divorced her father after s...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Book Concierge rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5***

For this historical thriller, Hellmann has chosen the time frame of 1977-1980, during the Iranian Revolution. Anna Schroder meets fellow grad student Nouri Samedi in a Chicago bookstore. They share a love of poetry, which is what begins their relationship. Despite their different cultures, they find in each other qualities which complete them, and fall in love. But when they return to Nouri’s native Iran, Anna is confronted with a greater cultural and religious divide than she had anticipa...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

In full disclosure, I was given a copy of this book to read before publication date. And am I glad! This is one of the most exciting books I've read in awhile.
The story begins in the late 1970's when Nouri, a flawed student from Iran, studying in Chicago, meets and falls in love with Anna, a damaged American student. Coming from two different worlds on many levels, the two fall in love and decide to marry once they go to Iran to begin their new life as a couple.
What Anna finds in Iran is more t...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Judith Starkston rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, strong-women, historical-fiction

Iran is in the news these days and the issues are important to us all, so it was with interest that I picked up Libby Fischer Hellman’s new novel, A Bitter Veil, set in the midst of the Iranian revolution that brought Khomeini to power. In a viscerally effective tale she brings that key moment to life, and we see it in a nuanced way that we would do well to carry into our understanding of the current crisis. I certainly remembered the overthrow of the shah and the hostage crisis, but I can’t say...more Iran is in the news these days and the issues are important to us all, so it was with interest that I picked up Libby Fischer Hellman’s new novel, A Bitter Veil, set in the midst of the Iranian revolution that brought Khomeini to power. In a viscerally effective tale she brings that key moment to life, and we see it in a nuanced way that we would do well to carry into our understanding of the current crisis. I certainly remembered the overthrow of the shah and the hostage crisis, but I can’t say I ever got inside that world until I read Hellman’s book.

It is perhaps a cliché to say that some themes transcend time and stay central to the human experience throughout the ages. But it’s still a profound notion despite its common currency. A Bitter Veil develops two such universal themes (along with other lesser ones, of course).

One of those themes Hellman succinctly identifies in her author notes:
“I am drawn to stories about women whose choices have been taken away from them. How do they react? Do they simply surrender? Become victims? Or can some survive, even triumph over their travails?”

Anna, Hellman’s main character, hangs in a delicate balance throughout the novel, and we don’t know how she’ll manage when extremist Islam traps her inside Iran under a veil. She’s no superhero, but she has to cope with extraordinary circumstances. When we meet her, she’s a college student in Chicago hunting down a copy of Rumi’s poetry. She meets Nouri, an Iranian engineering student, when he recites lines of Rumi to her at the bookstore. They are pretty typical college kids—sexual attraction, cultural exoticism, intelligent discussions, politics, all that heady brew draw them together. There are undercurrents of concern. They both seem in different ways too vulnerable for safety, too needy and dependent. The mama in me wanted to give them a lecture about strength of character and making decisions that are wise for you in the long run rather than decisions that feed into your weakest sides. Hellman has done a superb job of creating these two people. If I want to lecture an author’s characters, she’s clearly persuaded me they are real. But these are subtle problems that they suffer from, the sort most of us have in one way or another. If things had gone as planned, they’d have been fine. But instead they marry and go to Iran at the opening of its paroxysms. So what happens to a woman, and not an extraordinarily strong woman, when her freedoms are taken away, one by one, and her life is threatened multiple times and submission to extremism seems like the only way out? I’ll let you read and find out. It’s a good story.

The other theme that Hellman gradually unfolds is best summed up by Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase “the banality of evil.” As Anna says at one point when describing Iran during the revolution, “It’s as if an entire country—an entire culture—slipped off its axis. Black became white. White became black. Kind people were unkind. Good people were bad.” Arendt’s notion that an ordinary person can be led to evil actions arose from her study of the Nazis, and Hellman has Nazis in this book. I won’t tell you how—it will spoil some of the plot—but she creates a subtle and effective parallel between the Iranian extremism and Germany under the Nazis. She shows willingness of “good” people in Iran to perform orgies of killing through the process of identifying the “other” and then vowing to eradicate that other in order to purify society. Hellman includes amongst the “good” villains those allied with the Islamic revolution and those just trying to survive. Isn’t that precisely why such villainy works? No need to be a true believer to become tangled in the darkness.

There’s a hopeful message to this book and a deep cross-cultural sympathy. Both make it an uplifting read not a depressing one, despite the sadness. The good story and characters make it an engaging read. The subject matter and setting make it an illuminating one.
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Apr 09, 2012 Elyse rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don't think I was prepared for "A Bitter Veil" to be such an ambitious, intelligent, emotionally-charged-(satisfying-page-turning), important mystery-fiction book!

Libby Hellmann writes a gripping heart-rending incredible tale that feels like a true story.

The best way to read this story, (IMO), is know little about it! I can't imagine ANYONE NOT taking to this book! It is damn hard to put down! EVEN if you think you know this story (know the history)---which I did ---(I was in Iran during the...more

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May 14, 2012 Kate (sleepy kitten) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: uk-kindle-forum-authors

This book follows a young couple; Anna the American girl with a French mother and her father who had been a former Nazi scientist and Nouri who came from a wealthy Iranian family. Having met in University in America they move to Iran to get married at a time of political unrest over the Shahs rule, which ultimately led to a social revolution.

The political and social unrest play a pivotal part in the book, showing the changes that these stressful times can bring about in people. For me though, it...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Liz rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 31, 2013 Pat Timpanaro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Another good book club book! I have really been on a roll -- everything I've been reading has been good. This makes up for earlier this year when I didn't like anything.

Anyway, I knew the author wrote mysteries, so I was expecting a mystery. Then I saw on the cover of the book, "A Novel of Iran," and my reaction was a sound I can't type but which means something like "not another heavy, preaching book." Was I wrong -- this is one of the most readable, interesting books I've read in a long time.

T...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Chuck Briggs rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"A Bitter Veil" is simply one of the best books I've read in a long time - and I've been reading a lot of good ones, lately.

The plot revolves around an American student named Anna who falls in love with an Iranian student during the 70s and follows him to Iran to become his wife. She is instantly accepted by his family and their life together seems perfect - until the Shah is overthrown and the fundamentalists come to power. The horrors of the "Islamic Republic" are vividly brought to life -- c...more "A Bitter Veil" is simply one of the best books I've read in a long time - and I've been reading a lot of good ones, lately.

The plot revolves around an American student named Anna who falls in love with an Iranian student during the 70s and follows him to Iran to become his wife. She is instantly accepted by his family and their life together seems perfect - until the Shah is overthrown and the fundamentalists come to power. The horrors of the "Islamic Republic" are vividly brought to life -- chillingly reminiscent of Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany and half a dozen, military banana republics, as paranoia runs rampant and people suspected of wrong-thinking and " anti-revolutionary sentiments" are carted away in the night or just shot in the street. This is no descent into anti-Muslim paranoia. In fact, the book is warmly sympathetic to the Iranian people. Anna's new husband, who is a likable, loving, poetry reciting, engineering student at the beginning of the novel, is pressured into joining the revolution. He comes to accept fundamentalist thinking and degenerates into an abusive, controlling, hypocrite. We experience the horror of a free-thinking, modern, American woman as she is forced into the life of a fifth citizen with no rights simply because she is a woman.

Libby Fischer Hellmann is a crime writer by trade, and there is - in my opinion - a gratuitous, "who done it" puzzle thrown into the mix along with some slightly over-the-top, "passion pit" steaminess at the beginning, but any slight reservations or criticisms are quickly brushed aside by a compelling story and a close examination of the fundamentalist, Muslim world. The novel may be about Iran in the '70s, but with the rise of the Shiites in Iraq, the return of the Tali ban in Afghanistan, the election in Egypt, the revolution in Tunisia and the threats still present in Algeria and to the newly elected, "liberal" government of Libya (Al Quida's flag has been openly displayed in some Libyan cities,) the novel is absolutely relevant to the present. Very highly recommended. (less)

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May 24, 2012 Tanja Seppä rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: drama, kindle

Stupid woman! That was my predominant thought throughout this book. I finally decided on 4 stars, actual rating is more like 3.5. College student Anna meets and falls in love with Iranian engineering student Nouri. They marry and move to Iranian just before the revolution that deposed of the modernizing Shah and instituted the conservative Ayatollah instead. It couldn't go well, that much was obvious from the start.

Poor Anna, who grew up only with her father - her mother haven taken off when sh...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Rachelle Ayala rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a 5 star book, a work of literary fiction, political thriller, near-current historical fiction. It had everything, drama, young love, revolutionary changes, iconic characters, and a reign of terror. But why??? oh why??? did the ending include a hokey murder mystery, stereotyped Scooby-Doo-like reveal of the villain with the last minute gunshot and the finger of blame pointed at our protag???

I walked away feeling like the book was ruined. The young complicated character, the one I was in...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Cathy Cole rated it 4 of 5 stars

First Line: Anna was deeply asleep, which was unusual for her.

It is 1979. The Shah has fled, and the Ayatollah Khomeini is in control of Iran. A Bitter Veil opens as Anna is awakened early one morning by the pounding of Republican Guards at the door of her home in Tehran. When she opens the door, she is immediately whisked away to prison, charged with the death of her husband Nouri.

Anna and Nouri met while studying in Chicago. They fell passionately in love, married, and moved to Tehran, living...more First Line: Anna was deeply asleep, which was unusual for her.

It is 1979. The Shah has fled, and the Ayatollah Khomeini is in control of Iran. A Bitter Veil opens as Anna is awakened early one morning by the pounding of Republican Guards at the door of her home in Tehran. When she opens the door, she is immediately whisked away to prison, charged with the death of her husband Nouri.

Anna and Nouri met while studying in Chicago. They fell passionately in love, married, and moved to Tehran, living close to Nouri's wealthy family. They'd barely begun their married life when everything is thrown into turmoil. Everyday existence becomes increasingly restricted, none of the familiar Western rules apply, and Anna's marriage begins to fall apart as Nouri's behavior becomes more and more erratic. Women are required to wear hijab. Random arrests, torture, even Nouri's contempt become the norm. Now Nouri is dead, Anna is alone-- in prison in a hostile country-- and there is no one she can trust.

This book has an explosive start then immediately changes gears to explain how Anna and Nouri met and came to be living in Tehran. This "filling in the details" is fascinating stuff because we learn the two main characters' personalities as well as the unbelievably tense atmosphere in Iran during the overthrow of the Shah. As Anna stumbles in learning the unfamiliar traditions of her new family and her new country, so do we. But always lurking in the background is the knowledge that Nouri is dead... and Anna is in prison. The need to know Anna's fate keeps the pages turning to the very end.

Hellmann's research is impressive. She put me in the midst of the Iranian Revolution to watch a naive young outsider become trapped by things beyond her control. What I liked the most about this book is that it's so complex. Anna isn't automatically the heroine; these things don't happen to her simply because she's a poor American girl trapped in an evil Islamic country. Anna acts first and thinks about the consequences when it's too late-- and while I may have wanted to sit her down and talk some sense to her, I never felt contempt for Anna because there are good reasons for her reckless behavior.

Although this is Anna's story, Hellman also shows how the frightening political unrest affects the many Iranian characters in the book. Some fall under the Ayatollah's spell. Some escape. And some are unbelievably kind.

If you're in the mood for a fast-paced thriller with complex characters that engages both your mind and your emotions, I advise you to get a copy of Libby Fischer Hellmann's A Bitter Veil.(less)

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Apr 05, 2012 Sam Sattler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thriller

Libby Fischer Hellman is best known for the mysteries featuring strong female leads she writes, but her latest is more like last year’s Set the Night on Fire in which Hellmann took a more literary approach to a specific period of American history (the radicalism of the 1960s). With A Bitter Veil, the author focuses on the series of events that would lead both to the rise to power in Iran of the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini and to the downfall of American president Jimmy Carter. What makes the nov...more Libby Fischer Hellman is best known for the mysteries featuring strong female leads she writes, but her latest is more like last year’s Set the Night on Fire in which Hellmann took a more literary approach to a specific period of American history (the radicalism of the 1960s). With A Bitter Veil, the author focuses on the series of events that would lead both to the rise to power in Iran of the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini and to the downfall of American president Jimmy Carter. What makes the novel such a compelling read is Hellmann’s skill at recounting this turning point in the relationship of the two countries through the eyes of a rather naïve young American woman who falls in love with an Iranian student she meets in Chicago. Similar stories have, sadly, happened all too often in the real world during the last three decades.

Abby would like a family within which she can feel secure and protected, but she has the opposite. She is not particularly close to either of her parents; in fact, her mother has lived in her own native France for most of Abby’s life. Her physical and emotional response to Nouri, the young Iranian student she meets in a Chicago bookstore both surprises and pleases her. From almost the moment they meet, the two young people are inseparable and Anna dares to hope for a long future with Nouri. She is willing, almost eager, to follow him back to Iran to begin life there as a married woman.

As fate would have it, the couple returns to Iran at precisely the moment the Shah’s power and his hold on the government are slipping away forever. So gradually that Anna fails to recognize the warning signs, Nouri changes from the religiously liberal man she married into a strict follower of Islam. Nouri, whose father is close to the Shah and has become wealthy through his political connections, makes the change largely to ensure his own economic survival. Anna can understand the necessity of wearing the veil in public but in reality she becomes her husband’s prisoner - never allowed to leave their home alone. Worse, she learns that because she married in Iran she cannot leave the country legally without her husband’s permission. Nouri swears he will never allow her to leave.

The Bitter Veil is the story of a typical young American who finds herself tested in ways that the average, naïve American could not imagine in the late 1970s that they would ever be tested. The things that happen to her are simply not supposed to happen to an American – but when they do she must rise to the occasion if she hopes to survive long enough to escape Iran.

I do have one warning about the novel’s ending: do not begin the final segment (you will recognize it when you get there) unless there is time to finish the rest of A Bitter Veil before bedtime. Consider yourself warned.(less)

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Mar 28, 2012 Gayle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Gayle by: I was delighted to receive this book from Libby Fischer Hellmann.

A Story Poignant for the Times.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book “A Bitter Veil” by Libby Fischer Hellmann. The story starts with a chance encounter in a college book store where Anna is looking for a book of poetry and meets Nouri. It doesn’t take long for them to fall in love. Anna and Nouri are caught up in the demonstrations that spark the Iranian Revolution. As history tells us the ouster of the Shah creates the power vacuum for the Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran.
As their studies are conc...more

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Mar 16, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, libby-hellman

With Libby Fischer Hellmann's newest novel, A Bitter Veil, we are privileged to witness a quantum leap forward in the evolution of her already impressive story-telling chops. Following the lead of her fine period piece, Set The Night On Fire, Ms. Hellmann sets this story in a more recent period of tumult, turmoil, and violence: the transfer of control of Iran from the corrupt, secular reign of the Shah to the corrupt, nascent Islamic Republic. This story is the tale of two flawed individuals, of...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Teri rated it 3 of 5 stars

A Bitter Veil is fiction, but involved considerable research and, in the words of the author, "For better or worse, the Iranian Revolution is one of the most well documented periods of world history." It's a timely book, with all of the attention now focused on Argo and Iran. The book evoked mixed feelings in me while I was reading it and it reminded me again and again of how lucky I am to live in a country that isn't experiencing the chaos and destruction so many other countries deal with on a...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Lae Monier rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From the start it was clear to me I was reading one of those stories I'd been longing for a while. The one that grabs you and doesn't let go until it's finished. And I wasn't disappointed until the end that is, but I'll get to the that in a moment.
I found the writing excellent and compelling. Never too descriptive or detailed, just enough to drag me into a world I'm not familiar with and give me a good idea of it.
The characters, the story and flow of it was impeccable.
Chapter 47 though threw...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Gayle Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars

"What a Fascinating Story!"
Could not stop listening. Beautifully written, a very strong main character, and told within the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. Listening brought forth so many emotions in me--love, sadness, fear, and strength of the human spirit--to name just a few. The characters are well-developed, the narration fabulous, and the history of the Revolution very well researched. When I hear of Iran, I will always think of this tale because if the right circumstances lined up this...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Eirian Phillips rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Biographical- but more of a Nation rather than an individual?

One of the first things that struck me as I read this novel was that I wondered just how much of this was truly a work of fiction, and how much was actually closer to a memoir or biographical account, then as I read on and much more of the content had to do with the country and culture, I changed my mind.

The retelling of the story is a circular one that starts out with Anna being told of and arrested for the murder of her husband, and...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Shannon Stevens rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would have given it a four... wish I could do 3.5. I stayed up late to finish this book, which is the first time in a long time. My only annoyance with it was the constant references to compare Iran and Chicago. Now - I live outside Chicago. I LOVE Chicago. I know the author is from this area, but seemed like she was always saying, "Anna thought that this (insert place in Iran) reminded her of (insert place in Chicago). Otherwise - I really liked this book - even though I wasn't sure that I wo...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Rory Costello rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is popular literature of a high order. Start with a fresh, innovative concept, backed by a tremendous amount of research and knowledge, presented in a very lucid way. This book is easy to devour. The plot is compelling, as are all the characters, but where the story really excels is emotional conflict. It's portrayed with great depth.

One could view this as a companion of sorts to Khaled Hosseini's works. It deserves the same kind of success.

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About Libby Fischer Hellmann

Libby's newest thriller, HAVANA LOST, is set largely in Cuba and spans 3 generations of the same family. It will be released in September, 2013.

A BITTER VEIL, was released by Allium Press of Chicago in April, 2012. Set in revolutionary Iran, PW calls it a "significant departure" from her previous work but says it will "please both established fans and newcomers."

In September, 2011, Libby released...more

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