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 Maryams 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 mothers 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.