title: Passage to Paradise
author: Jameson, Max
description: Is divine love a mystical phenomenon of the past? What is the makeup of true love? What is the key to a woman's heart and soul? Is love enough to keep a couple under the same roof? These intriguing questions and many more are examined from the vantage point of Mahnaz, an innocent, naive Persian teenager in this best-seller romantic drama. This contemporary romance novel tells the story of a young Iranian woman from a middle-class family in Tehran, who discovers her true love, loses it, struggles to overcome this loss, and finally gains the wisdom to reunite with her lost love again. The Passage to Paradise is an honest confession of a Persian teenaged girl who discovers the ultimate pleasure of divine love but finds herself incapable of holding to the man of her life because she is too naive, too pampered, too out of touch with her inner feelings. The book is filled with bittersweet episodes of Mahnaz's exposure to real-life experiences. She is frustratingly truthful about showcasing her shortcomings and weaknesses. In doing so, she exercises something that most of us would not dare do--self-criticism.