Hachette Livre

Hachette Livre Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. In what way does the city change the narrator?
  2. What’s your favourite scene in The Blood of Flowers and why?
  3. To what extent does our narrator control her own destiny?
  4. Discuss the nature of friendship in The Blood of Flowers.
  5. The heroine in The Blood of Flowers discovers that she has a talent for making carpets. What is the talent of which you are most proud?
  6. Do you think the way in which men and women interact with one another in this period, as portrayed in this novel, is radically different to the present-day?
  7. Were you aware of sighehs before you read this novel? Do you think the narrator made the right decision in agreeing to it, given her circumstances?
  8. The narrator’s mother says that she will be estranged from the family if she does not accept the sigheh. Is this an act of betrayal or pragmatism?
  9. ‘…As each of the thick wooden gates slammed behind me, I thought about how richly dressed Maryam was, how soft her hands…and yet I did not envy her. Each time a gate closed with a thud, I was reminded that while I was free to come and go, she could not leave without an approved reason and a large entourage.’ At what point in the novel do you think the narrator truly learns the value of her independence?
  10. Why do you think Gordiyeh treats the narrator and her mother so badly?
  11. What role does food play in The Blood of Flowers?
  12. ‘In the spring of the year that I was supposed to be married, a comet launched itself over the skies of my village. It was brighter than any comet we had ever seen, and more evil. Night after night, as it crawled across our skies spraying its cold white seeds of sorrow, we tried to decipher the fearsome messages of the stars.’ Discuss the influence of superstition on characters’ lives in The Blood of Flowers.
  13. What other books would you recommend to a reader who has enjoyed this one?

Current Reading Group Titles

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  2. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  3. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  4. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  5. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  6. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  7. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  8. How To Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper
  9. Still Waters by Camilla Noli
  10. Wives of the East Wind by Liu Hong
  11. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  12. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  13. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  14. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  15. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  16. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  18. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  19. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  20. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  21. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  22. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  23. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  24. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  25. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell