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Virgins of Paradise

Name: Virgins of Paradise
Author: Barbara Wood
ISBN: 9781596528611

by Barbara Wood

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Overview

A magnificent coming-of-age saga about two sisters from an aristocratic Egyptian family who rebel against tradition.

Inside a beautiful mansion on Virgins of Paradise Street in post-World War II Cairo, Jasmine and Camelia Rasheed grow to womanhood under the watchful eyes of their grandmother and the other women of the prominent Rasheed family. Despite the glamour and elegance of the city, women still wear the veil and live in harems. But as Egypt begins to change, so do Jasmine and Camelia. Rebelling against a society in which the suppression of women is assumed, Jasmine and Camelia embark on turbulent personal and professional voyages of discovery. Cast out of the family, Jasmine travels to America to become a doctor while Camelia sets out to become one of the foremost beledi dancers in the Middle East.

Sensuous, spicy, and romantic, Virgins of Paradise is a spellbinding novel set in an exotic and erotic culture. Brilliantly portraying two sisters' search for identity amidst historic change, Wood also conveys a portrait of an ancient nation merging into the modern era while mired in superstition, magic, and mythology.

From the bestselling author of The Dreaming. They are prisoners in a Garden of Eden--pampered, adored, and denied in a sensual and exotic world. But a hunger for forbidden freedoms will shame two beautiful sisters in the eyes of their family, as their separate roads lead them to adventure, fulfillment, and love--and to a place of sadness on a street called Virgins of Paradise.

Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Barbara Wood: A magnificent coming-of-age saga about two sisters from an aristocratic Egyptian family who rebel against tradition.

Inside a beautiful mansion on Virgins of Paradise Street in post-World War II Cairo, Jasmine and Camelia Rasheed grow to womanhood under the watchful eyes of their grandmother and the other women of the prominent Rasheed family. Despite the glamour and elegance of the city, women still wear the veil and live in harems. But as Egypt begins to change, so do Jasmine and Camelia. Rebelling against a society in which the suppression of women is assumed, Jasmine and Camelia embark on turbulent personal and professional voyages of discovery. Cast out of the family, Jasmine travels to America to become a doctor while Camelia sets out to become one of the foremost beledi dancers in the Middle East.

Sensuous, spicy, and romantic, Virgins of Paradise is a spellbinding novel set in an exotic and erotic culture. Brilliantly portraying two sisters' search for identity amidst historic change, Wood also conveys a portrait of an ancient nation merging into the modern era while mired in superstition, magic, and mythology.

About the Author, Barbara Wood

BARBARA WOOD is the international bestselling author of twenty-five acclaimed novels, including New York Times bestseller Domina. Her work has been translated into over 30 languages. Barbara lives in California.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

From the author of The Dreaming comes this multilayered historical saga of two sisters rebelling against Egyptian social tradition. (Dec.)

Library Journal

As young girls from the upper-class Rasheed family in Cairo, Jasmine and Camelia are carefully schooled in Egyptian ritual by their enigmatic grandmother. As they mature and break away from strict Muslim custom, they are catapulted in unorthodox directions. To the family's horror, Camelia becomes an exotic dancer. At the age of 16, Jasmine is married off to her cousin, who abuses her physically and psychologically. When he divorces her after a rape scandal, Jasmine is banished and forced to leave her children behind. She pursues her dream of becoming a doctor and only returns to Cairo when mysteriously summoned by her grandmother. Author of The Dreaming (Random, 1991) and Green City in the Sun (Fawcett, 1989), Wood has once again written a too-long novel with a large cast of characters. Recommended for fans of Wood and readers who love protracted tales. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/93.-- Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Kirkus Reviews

Nearly five crisis-packed decades in the lives of traditionally reared Egyptian women—complete with all the makings of a possible bestseller: a smooth-as-silk narration, a graceful approximation of the ritual concerns and courtesies of another culture, a few fightin' female hearts within the bonds of womanly repression, and the inevitable scandals, secrets, and forbidden loves within an upper-caste Cairo household. Heading the women's household of Dr. Ibraham Rasheed is his stately mother, Amira, whose firm upholding of the old ways of complete female subservience has had something to do with her past—an early trauma not revealed until the close. In 1945, when the story begins, Ibraham, distraught at the death of his young wife in childbirth, curses God—but even more terrible is not being able to satisfy his dead father by siring a son. Ibraham adopts a baby boy, but fathers only daughters—among them his favorites, Yasmina, by his blond English wife Alice, and Camelia by his first wife. Meantime, Ibraham is personal physician to King Farouk, forced to abdicate in 1952, and is jailed for treason, while Amira raises and presides over her women, arranging marriages and comforting; eventually, it is she who not only obtains Ibraham's release but exposes a family enemy. Along the way, Yasmina, in a brutal and loveless marriage, is banished because—in a heroic effort to save the family—she is raped and thereby "dishonors" that family; and Camelia, sterile because of a face-saving operation, studies dancing with the famous Dahiba (another banished victim of "honor"). Yasmina travels to California, becomes a doctor, marries, divorces, and finds true love, whileat home there's a cholera epidemic, tragic and violent deaths, sad and happy pairings, and a few valiant stirrings of the female wish for liberation. A warmly gossipy family tale in an exotic setting—and, like most of Wood's novels (The Dreaming, 1991, etc.), spun off with ease and apparent pleasure in the telling. (First printing of 100,000)