The Bastard of Istanbul

<p><b>One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I need to have an abortion' she announces. She is nineteen years old and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life.</b><br><br>Twenty years later Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul. Due to a mysterious family curse all the Kaznci men die in their early forties so it is a house of women among them Asya's beautiful rebellious mother Zeliha who runs a tattoo parlour; Banu who has newly discovered herself as clairvoyant; and Feride a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. And when Asya's Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay long hidden family secrets connected with Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge.<br><br><b>'Wonderfully magical incredible breathtaking...will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages' <i>Sunday Express</i><br><br>'A beautiful book the finest I have read about Turkey' <i>Irish Times</i><br><br>'Heartbreaking...the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book' <i>Vogue</i></b></p>