This novel got off to a plesant start. Barbara Wood certainly knows how to take a reader to another time and place and make it real. Her research was obviously very excellent. Her writing style is terrific also. I simply did not care for this particular novel. After a great beginning, I gradually grew sick and tired of Amira, the grandmother of the house. The woman controls everything and everyone, holds back her own sex with her ignorance, marries her daughters and granddaughters off to absusive or hateful men, and then bans them from her home. And everytime something awful happens, the woman declares it is "god's will." Her ways, her comments, and her total control grew infuriating for me. I felt the story was more about Amira than Camelia and Jasmine combined. Alice, an English woman and Jasmine's mother, plays such a small, insignificant role, I wonder why her character existed after Jasmine was born. The poor woman truly serves as a quiet wall flower. I did, however, enjoy reading about the Islam culture and women in general and the way they started fighting for their rights. I also enjoyed the passionate twists and romances. If Amira, aka Control Freak, had simply died early in the story, the book would have been absolutely wonderful. As it was, with her running the show constantly, it grew too repetitive for my taste. However, if you do not mind reading about women constantly being mentally beat down and you want to understand Egypt and its history, I recommend this novel.