Introduction
The story is about a literature student (Neda) whose entire family has been murdered during a ransom deal gone wrong. The story starts one year after the incident, when she’s alone and depressed. She vaguely remembers the face of her kidnapper (whom she refers to “the man of my nightmares”).
For one year, she tried to get the judiciary to find and pursue him, but they seem to be covering up for him, and she even loses her best friend during the investigation. So, the main timeline of the story involves her going on a quest to find and exact revenge from the man of her nightmares, and all the morally ambiguous choices she has to make along the way. The story has some very dark themes (murder, PTSD, sexual assault, etc.) and the main character has suicidal thoughts multiple times throughout the book. The story is set in Tehran, Iran.
The story is told from three different timelines:
- Before the incident
- After the incident
- Present time
The gap between the three timelines closes by the end of the story, revealing the full picture. You may find the official blurb of the book on its Amazon page.
The book is dual POV, each narrated by a voice. The following word counts represent the portion belonging to each narrator (front and back matter also taken into account):
- Female POV: 85639
- Male POV: 21690
- Book total: 107244
Pronunciation Guide
Click on each name below to hear the pronunciation. For characters, there’s also personality / voice pointers next to their names.
Characters
- Ahmed Bashir: awkward, naive, kind, Arabic accent if possible
- Ali Karzand: confident, kind
- Alidousti (Mr.): authoritative, meticulous, pedantic, religious
- Anahita: a bomb of energy, high-pitched voice, speaks rather fast
- Aria Irani: kind, resourceful, calm (confident masculine voice)
- Derakhshan (Dr.): middle-aged, eloquent, collected
- Fakhri (Lt.): authoritative, patronizing
- Hamid Aslani: has a rough, angry outward demeanor but inside he’s a kind man
- Hosna: northern accent, deep feminine voice
- Hossein Sarbandi: disrespectful, vulgar
- Jabir Qassan: Gruff voice, condescending
- Jaffari (Dr.)
- Javidpour (Mr.): two-faced. overly friendly, formal, and respectful
- Karami (Professor)
- Karzand (Mrs.): mean, self-important
- Khalid
- Mahmood Talebzadeh: calm, calculating, cunning
- Mahtab: northern accent, informal
- Masoud Bin Hanif Imrani: Condescending, Arabic accent if possible
- Milad Baraati: Friendly, informal toward Neda, but formal to his colleagues.
- Neda Ghaderi: See the POV guide for details.
- Omid Bakhshi: See the POV guide for details.
- Parvaneh (Pari) Nikpeyman: Kind, sensitive, friendly, gentle.
- Pedram: A bit of a husky voice.
- Qamar
- Rasekhi (Ms.)
- Saleh Sarbandi: Eloquent, cunning, fatherly tone, deep voice.
- Sami Bin Masoud Imrani: Womanizer, rich, confident.
- Sara Namdari (Mom): Respectful, kind, mom-funny.
- Sassan Ghaderi (Dad): Confident, his voice, though calm, commands respect
- Shahidi (Major): serious, impatient
- Shahin Ghaderi: egocentric, barely considers others
- Sharareh: Grandma attitude, northern accent
- Shirin Aslani: shy, her voice is deeper than Neda
- Shiva Derakhshan: energetic voice, but not bubbly like pre-incident Neda
- Thuwaybah: African accent, sassy
- Valy: servile, low-class, disrespectful
- Zahra Moradbeigi: motherly, submissive, speaks slowly and quietly
- Zakeri (Mr.)
Organizations / Entities
Locations
Persian Calendar Months
Miscellaneous
Acknowledegments
POV Guide
Neda
The specific tone of Neda depends on where she is in the timeline.
Before the incident (i.e. when her family is still alive and everything is good), she’s bubbly, naive, a little entitled, and good company in general. She’s confident and commands attention when she speaks, and her general positive attitude means everyone wants to be friends with her.
After the incident (and before the “present” timeline), she’s depressed, and usually talks in short bursts. She doesn’t put much energy into her words and avoids social contacts in general. Of course, there are times when she becomes overwhelmed and all that bottled-up trauma and energy bursts out of her, and that’s when she doesn’t just talk loudly. She screams. She becomes overly snide, callous, and even hurtful in her comments to her friends.
In the “present” timeline, she’s recovered from her trauma to an extent. Still there are some triggers that push her over the edge and “she becomes that same “release the beast” so to say. Other than that, she keeps to herself, she doesn’t share much with people around her, she considers their feelings as much as she can and tries to be independent. Her tone in this part of the timeline should be low, self-deprecating, a little sarcastic at times. In general, unless she’s super angry, she doesn’t have the energy to speak with any semblance of enthusiasm, but when the time is right, she knows how to deliver a deadpan joke.
Omid
Omid changes less than Neda between the timelines. Of course, at some point she loses the love of his life, so obviously he’s going to sound even less energetic. But other than that, he’s an introverted and awkward literature student who doesn’t have a lot of friends at the university. He often has trouble expressing himself the way he wants and that’s why he’s often misunderstood. Your (Luke) natural voice is perfect for him, perhaps with somewhat diminished confidence. He can also be rather mumbly when he’s feeling especially out of place.
Additional Notes
Northern Accent
I’ve marked a few characters as having a “northern accent”. I don’t particularly have a set rule on how to make this different from the normal accent, but going by the actual accent, it can involve the normal American accent with a sounds like car/dawn changed to sound more like a in sand. Please consult me before landing on any particular method (perhaps with examples) since this has to be synchronized with the other narrator.