Feral (Darkly Ever After, #5)

by Mila Crawford

On her nightstand lay a battered copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. The cover was dented, pages dog-eared, and highlighter applied to various paragraphs. The book was the only banged up one in her collection. Most of the others on her shelf didn’t even have a cracked spine. “What’s your obsession with this book?” Azadeh pulled the book from my grasp and traced her fingers over the cover. “I find it fascinating, a woman who lived on the other side of the planet captured the horrors haunting so many women in Iran.” “But your mom is a fierce, independent woman. She had an education, and judging by how she talks about your father, she seemed to run that show. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the women are prisoners in a patriarchal nightmare. Is Iran that bad?” Azadeh gazed at the book, her mind going to some place darker. “Like you said earlier, life is based on luck. My mother was lucky to be born to a man who respected her and lucky enough to fall in love with my father, a man who adored her. But for many women in Iran, it’s like living in hell on earth, where they’re nothing but property and cattle to be bartered. So your answer about Iran will depend on who you ask.”