-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Memoir of Secrets, Loss, and Love From Iran to America
by Rahimeh Andalibian
In this searing memoir, Iran-born author Rahimeh Andalibian tells the story of her family: their struggle to survive the 1979 revolution, their move to California, and their attempts to acculturate in the face of teenage rebellion, murder, addiction, and new traditions. Andalibian struggles to make sense of two brutal crimes: one solved by her father and the other of which her beloved oldest brother stands accused.
She takes us first into her family's tranquil, jasmine-scented days of prosperity in their luxury hotel in Mashhad, Iran. Their life is ruptured by the 1979 revolution as they flee: first to the safety of a mansion in Tehran, next to a squalid one-room flat in London, and finally to California, where they suffer a different kind of revolution.
Struggling to adjust to a new host culture, they soon discover that although they escaped Iran, they are not free from their own lies and hidden truths. As the family comes to grips with their new home, the strength of their bonds are tested by love, loyalty, compassion, hate, pain, loss—and the will to survive. Heartbreaking and intimately told, this is a universal story of healing, rebirth after tragedy, and hard-won redemption.
"Starred Review. [Andalibian] sharply addresses topics relating to religious and political repression, profiling, and childhood trauma, while skillfully crafting an insightful, passionate immigrant's story with cross-cultural resonance." - Publishers Weekly
"A powerful and uplifting memoir of tragedy and healing." - Kirkus
This information about The Rose Hotel was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rahimeh Andalibian was born in Tehran and moved with her family to California in 1986, at the onset of the Iranian revolution. Raised and schooled in LA, she is a clinical psychologist specializing in intergenerational family therapy. A dynamic speaker and a savvy, promotion-driven author, she speaks frequently at conferences and has promoted the book on Martha Stewart Radio and BlogHer.
If you liked The Rose Hotel, try these:
by Marjan Kamali
Published 2025
From the nationally bestselling author of the "powerful, heartbreaking" (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.
by Kaveh Akbar
Published 2024
A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in ...
by Susanne Pari
Published 2023
Inspired by her own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Susanne Pari explores the entangled lives within an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes, the roles imposed on women, and a tragic accident that forces them to reconcile their guilt or forfeit their already tenuous bonds.
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
