Ashley Dartnell’s mother was a glamorous American, her British father dashing and handsome.  Each was trying to shed their past and transform themselves in the  more romantic and exotic setting of Iran.

As the story starts, Ashley was  eight years old and living in Tehran in the Sixties: the Shah was in power, life for Westerners was rich and privileged.  But somehow it didn’t all add up to a fairytale. There were bankruptcies and prisons, betrayals and lovers, lies and evasions.  And throughout it all, Ashley’s passionate and strong-willed mother, Genie.

Stories of mothers and daughters are some of the most powerful in contemporary memoir, from The Liars’ Club and The Glass Castle to Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Bad Blood. Farangi Girl would be honoured  to be in their company. An honest and compelling portrait of a mother by a daughter who loved her, in spite of everything.