Synopsis
A windstorm of fire, scent, and vengeance engulfs three different generations in the Arabian Peninsula.
In the ninth century AD, Abbasid poet Ibn al-Mo’taz hides in his palace from the flames of revenge eating at his soul. In the early 1920s, Shamma is born to a family of Dubai spice traders with a nose unlike any of her relatives, altering the shape of their destiny. A hundred years later, on the same coast, Sherihan grows up right by a cemetery wall, digging in constant search for death and its meaning. Her supernatural sense of smell lets her perceive feelings beyond anyone else’s reach, but when a peculiar boy tries to help her, she’s unable to detect his scent.
Can she find the answer to her burning questions? And how do scents and family secrets link her fate with those who went before?
About the Author
Salha Obaid is an Emirati writer and novelist who published her first short story collection, Alzheimer, in 2010. The Messenger of Happiness and The iPad’s Life on the Zorba Way followed in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Her fourth collection, A White Strand Implicitly (2015), won the Al Owais Prize for Creativity, as did her novel Except Your Grandmother Was Singing (2025). She has also published the novels Perhaps a Joke (2018) and The Spice Circle (2022); the latter was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2023. Her works have been translated into English, Italian and German.