Set amid the elegant châteaux of Belle époque France and the closely guarded world of nineteenth-century Persian women, Courtesan unfolds with the breathtaking cinematic sweep and stunning visual grandeur of an epic film. At its heart are three unforgettable women: Madame Gabrielle, the courtesan whose fateful liaison with the shah of Persia reverberates in the lives of her daughter, Françoise, and her rebellious and brave granddaughter, Simone, whose journey plunges her into the cutthroat diamond trade, where the secrets of an ancient culture may hold the truth she desperately seeks.
"A cross between Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Da Vinci Code, Dora Levy Mossanen's new novel invites us into a great courtesan's satin-lined bed and draws us into the carnal grip of turn-of-the-century Paris and Persia."
-- Alison Leslie Gold, author of Fiet's Vase and The Devil's Mistress
"...an exhilarating epic that roams from Persia to Paris to South Africa, carrying the reader along on a wave of intrigue, murder, and romance."
-- John Rechy, author of City of Night
"From the first page of Courtesan, I felt as if I had stepped into a mirage. The dream landscape Mossanen builds, one stunning image at a time, cements her place as a magic realist with a decidedly erotic twist."
-- M. J. Rose, author of The Halo Effect
"Dora Levy Mossanen masters the fine-tuned powers of language. She has the rare talent to transform the 'lust-vein' of our imagination into a panoply of lyrical imagery, at once visual and sensual. Her characters live out loud in the best tradition of a Zola-styled narrative."
-- James Ragan, poet and author of Lusions
