Gina B. Nahai holds a BA and a master’s degree in international relations from UCLA and an MFA in creative writing from USC. She lives in Los Angeles, where she’s a professor of creative writing at the University of Southern California. Her novels have been translated into 18 languages. Nahai’s first novel, Cry of the Peacock, told, for the first time in any Western language, the 3,000-year story of the Jewish people of Iran. Her second novel, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, was a finalist for the Orange Prize in England, the IMPAC award in Dublin, and the Harold J. Ribalow Award in the United States. Her third novel, Sunday’s Silence, was an "L.A. Times" bestseller and a Best Book of the Year. Her fourth novel, Caspian Rain won the Persian Heritage Foundation’s Award.

From the best-selling author of Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, a stirring, lyrical tale that offers readers a unique insight into the inner workings of Iranian society. In the decade before the Islamic Revolution, Iran is a country at the brink of explosion. Twelve-year-old Yaas is born in Tehran, into an already divided family: her father is the son of wealthy Iranian Jews who are integrated into the country's upper-class, mostly Muslim, elite; her mother was raised in the slums of South Tehran, one street away from the old Jewish ghetto. Yaas spends her childhood navigating the many layers of Iranian society. Her task, already difficult because of the disparity in her parents worldview, becomes all the more critical when her father falls in love with a beautiful woman from a noble Muslim family. As her parents marriage begins to crumble, and the country moves ever closer to revolution, Yaas is plagued by a mysterious, and terrifying, illness. And when she learns that her father is about to abandon her and her mother to immigrate to America with his mistress Yaas becomes determined to use her best effort to save herself and her family. At once a cultural exploration of an as-yet unfamiliar society, and a psychological study of the effects of loss, Caspian Rain takes the reader inside the tragic and fascinating world of a brave young girl struggling against impossible odds.