On an autumn day in London, the dark secrets and troubled past of Maryam Mazar surface violently with tragic consequences for her pregnant daughter, Sara, and her newly orphaned nephew, Saeed. Racked with guilt, Maryam is compelled to leave the comfort of her suburban home and mild English husband to return to Mazareh, the remote Iranian village where her story began. There she must face her past and the memories of a life she was forced to leave behind when her father disowned her for a sin she did not commit, in the days when she was young, headstrong and beautiful.

Back in England, Sara takes care of Saeed and her distraught father as she tries to understand what has happened. Together they begin to unearth Maryam's story from their memories, fragments of conversation, photographs and a few lines of poetry. In her quest to piece their life back together, Sara follows her mother to Iran, to discover the roots of her unhappiness and to try to bring her home. Far from the terraced streets of London, among the snow-capped mountains and wind-swept plains that have haunted her mother's dreams for half a century, Sara finally learns the terrible price Maryam once had to pay for her freedom, and of the love she left behind.

A richly poetic and haunting narrative, The Saffron Kitchen tells of betrayal and retribution, of secrets that can lie undisturbed for decades without losing their power to harm, of the pain of exile and the difficult joy of homecoming.

'Yasmin Crowther's The Saffron Kitchen is in many ways a book about edges, the significant yet often precarious edges of human experience: the edge where childhood innocence suddenly turns to adult responsibility; where generous love changes to embittered hatred; where unconscious drives become seemingly rational decisions; and where different cultural values confront each other. Unlike many of the 'inter-race relations' novels that are particularly popular  these days, Yasmin Crowther avoids caricaturing or sentimentalising her background. Rather than give a clichéd portrayal of the 'quirkiness' of her culture, Crowther frequently turns this around to evoke the oddities of the English... Time and time again the novel disarms the reader by capturing emotions in a simple yet startlingly perceptive way... and the plot is as beguiling as the language, moving effortlessly between wide time-frames and vast distances. The Saffron Kitchen marks Yasmin Crowther out as a novelist of exceptional honesty and grace'
—Sunday Telegraph

'A bittersweet novel... Crowther's novel unfolds at a leisurely pace, vividly conjuring physical and emotional landscapes'
—The Observer

'Accomplished first novel tells movingly the story of Maryam'
—Sunday Times

'An unusual and satisfying read'
—The Guardian

'As a guide to the subtle complexities of family life The Saffron Kitchen is inspired; as a study of the flip side of the cultural divide it is intelligent and probing... an impressive debut'
—Scotsman

'She writes well about exiles and price of freedom'
—Telegraph

'Crowther negotiates with the utmost sensitivity and perception the inflections of a relationship that has only ever been permitted to mature in secrecy. The privilege of telling one's personal history emerges as a cultural value but also as a painful burden that only thoughtful conversation can heal. Movingly, it does'
—The Herald

'Yasmin Crowther's affecting debut novel opens with a corker of an incident...Crowther skilfully illuminates her novel's dark corners with mellifluous prose that brings to radiant life England's lush greens and Iran's vibrant colours and flavours... The Saffron Kitchen is also a tender acknowledgement that, all too often, one freedom is exchanged for another...  it is a novel of tremendous hope'
—Scotland on Sunday

'A moving debut'
—InStyle magazine

'This debut novel is a delicate, bittersweet examination of the nature of home and homesickness, and a salient reminder of the way the past can haunt the present with subtle, heart-breaking persistence'
—Daily Mail

'An impressive debut novel... Yasmin Crowther tells this cross-cultural drama with skill. The action smoothly moves between London and Iran, as does the narrative voice between third and first person'
—Financial Times

'A lovely, accessible debut... as topical as it is evocative'
—Ireland on Sunday