"Sex and friendship, ambition and political intrigue, secrets and betrayal will set the fate of two slaves -- Jamila and Abimelech -- in this [...] debut novel. Inspired by the only existing first-person narrative of an Abyssianian slave in Iran, Jamila Habashi, In the Palace of Flowers recreates the opulet Persian royal court of the Qajars at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a precarious time of growing public dissent, foreign interference...