The worldwide bestseller from the author of 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns': Mariam is fifteen when she is sent from the province to Kabul and married to the shoemaker Raschid, who is thirty years her senior. Years later, Laila, a girl from the neighborhood, faces a similar fate. When her family is killed in a bombing, she becomes Raschid's second wife. After an initial mistrust, Mariam and Laila become close friends. Together, they resist Raschid's brutality and plan their escape. A poignant novel about the fate of two women in Afghanistan, written by the great storyteller Khaled Hosseini.