While driving to California recently, I listened to The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani. I found this book while doing a library search on weaving in Persia after a friend recommended The Virgin’s Knot by Holly Payne.

A young Persian girl narrates the story. After a comet predicts bad luck, she and her mother are forced to live with her uncle (a master rug maker) when her father dies. She wants her uncle to teach her the art and technique of rug knotting. He wishes she were a boy—then he would teach her all he knows. Through her we learn to make pleasing patterns, choose engaging color, tie knots and sell her rugs. The author has combined history, tradition and the drama of 17th-century Persia in this story of a young woman determined to make her own way in a male-dominated society.