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In Iran in 1978, sixteen-year-old American Jill Alexander falls in love with Shaheen Rohani, a french horn player in the Tehran Community School band, but Shaheen's committment to his country's freedom threatens their relationship as revolution approaches

Gr 10 Up Jill, the daughter of an American oil engineer on assignment in Iran, and upper-class Iranian radical Shaheen meet at the Teheran International School in the last year of the Shah's regime. A shared talent and passion for classical music leads to a friendship and then to a love affair. As Jill struggles to understand and assimilate her fascinating but impenetrable surroundings and reaches toward personal happiness, Iran unravels, and Jill and her family leave. The teenagers are appealing figures. Their innocence, decency, and hope shine through this rather familiar story of first love in an unfamiliar setting. Gilmore starts slowly and sometimes gets bogged down in awkwardly-introduced passages of political discussion and of geographical and cultural details, but she does capture the essence of this exotic and troubled setting. Characterization is uniformly solid. Especially sensitive are the family scenes in two contrasting cultures. Older teens may like the tender romance, with sex (but not immediately or without deliberation) and they may be enticed by unusual and dangerous setting. Readers may conclude that when all seems lost, some things of value live on in the heart. Libby K. White, Schenectady County Public Library, N.Y. Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.