Winter Heart

Leila Alizai has always done the right thing. Defying expectations of an immigrant girl, she has excelled academically and now she’s in law school. Her father always encouraged her to follow her dreams, but Leila’s brothers are men of a different type and they make no attempt to hide that they want Leila to live a traditional life.

    

Elvira Winterose has done absolutely everything wrong with all the good things she had. She’s smart with model looks, but to escape the expectations and the pain of her absent parents, she’s made a mess of it all and married a man who treats her worse than dirt. Daily abuse, her husband’s draconian rules and the dull existence as a housewife are her life.

    

When Leila’s mother goes to Afghanistan, the brewing conflict with her brothers comes to a violent conclusion. Elvira’s husband is insisting it’s time for a baby, and Elvira knows that if she ends up pregnant, she’ll never be free and so she makes a fateful decision. Leila and Elvira’s desperate actions land both in prison, and their deep wounds lead to mutual dislike, but when they’re placed in a cell together, enmity turns to friendship and then love—but the road to freedom and a life together is hard, and outside the walls, dangers still lurk.