Author's name: Marwa Al-Dakmak

The novel presents an emotional, social, and fictional drama that focuses on the suffering of women during wartime and how their lives are transformed by loss and conflict. It highlights the social and economic oppression women face.
In a world torn apart by wars and divisions, where the country is divided into three distinct regions - the closed North, the open West as it is promoted, and the mysterious South that no one knows anything about - a fierce war erupts between the North and the West, changing everyone's fate.
Amidst this devastation, the novel follows Ali's family over the years. Rayhana finds herself alone after her husband joins the fighting fronts, leaving her with four young daughters to face a harsh world. Her life quickly turns into a daily battle against hunger, poverty, and tyranny, as she is tyrannized by Izz al-Din, her greedy brother-in-law, who sees her only as an obstacle to his seizure of her property. While her friend Khadija tries to cling to hope after her son is taken away to war, she too fights a fierce struggle for survival, clinging to her dignity in an unforgiving society.
But the tragedy reaches its climax when one of her daughters is killed by her uncle in the name of honor, and her husband returns after many years, not as an absent lover, but as a man carrying with him another husband and a child, finally shattering whatever hope remained in her heart.