“Warm, wise, and laugh-out-loud funny, Roseheart creates a world and invites us in. It’s a love story with mother-in-law included, a millennium baby, and cross-cultural kitchens bursting with aromas of Persian and Minnesota cooking. It’s also an ode to friendship, family, and finding the way home. Catherine Dehdashti writes with a big heart and a twinkle in her eye.”
—Gayla Marty, author, Memory of Trees: a Daughter’s Story of a Family Farm

“Sometimes funny, often moving, Roseheart is a novel that reads like a diary, and also like a mystery, as the story builds towards a surprising revelation. And for anyone with a fondness for or curiosity about Persian culture and cuisine, Roseheart offers special rewards.”
—Jeremy Iggers, author, Garden of Eating: Food, Sex, and the Hunger for Meaning

“CatherineDehdashti’s delightful debut novel, Roseheart, is both a sweet love story and a fascinating peek at modern Persian culture. It is an engrossing look at that eternal triangle—husband, wife and an unforgettable mother-in-law.”
Anne Gillespie Lewis, author, So Far Away in the World: Stories from the Swedish Twin Cities

“Imagine Bridget Jones hailed from Minnesota and her mother served red Jell-o salad rather than turkey curry. Imagine further that Bridget found love with a Persian Mark Darcy and moved in with him … and his mother. Irreverent and candid Valerie summons readers to the 1990s with black lacquered water bedroom sets and Gen Xers struggling with post-college realities of grownup life. Woven together with regional details and mouthwatering food descriptions, Dehdashti’s breakout novel explores Valerie’s relationships, none so defining as the one she shares with her mother-in-law.”
—Patrice Johnson, food and culture writer, Cultural Construct

“There are some stories that you never forget. Roseheart is that kind of story! It is a story filled with anecdotes which are sometimes light-hearted, sometimes cynical, but always humanistic. It’s suggestive undertones impel us to question ourselves, our expectations, our ideals, our world.”
—Ana B.