NAMED ONE OF 51 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKSLONGLISTED FOR THE BRIDPORT NOVEL AWARDIn beautifully rendered prose a mother and a daughter struggle as outsiders in Baghdad and London in this intergenerational drama set against a background of political tension and intrigueWho would be charmed by tales of life in the beautiful old house on the banks of the Tigrislooted now no doubt its shutters torn and the courtyard strewn with mattressesOne night in 2003 AngloIraqi psychiatrist Mona Haddad has a surprise visitor to her London office an old acquaintance Duncan Claybourne. But why has he come Will his confession finally lay bare what happened to her family before they escaped Iraq Their stories begin in 1937 when Monas mother Diane a lively Englishwoman newly married to Ibrahim an ambitious Iraqi doctor meets Duncan by chance. Diane is working as a nanny for the Iraqi royal family.