From the eccentric comforts of the Mona Lisa guesthouse in Dhaka to the dusty frontier town of Peshawar, Hanifa Deen travelled through Bangladesh and Pakistan, meeting and talking to women: mavericks, feminists and starry-eyed foreign wives; actresses and socialites; urban professionals and rural women who had never left their villages, to discover the many faces of Muslim women today.
With humour, compassion and insight, Hanifa Deen relates stories of their fight against oppressions, of the friendship of women, of the joys and frustrations of the extended family, of the unwritten laws that govern women's lives and the violence that can threaten them.
She also stumbles on the trail of a mystery - the murder of Yasmeen, an innocent young girl whose death galvanised a nation and symbolizes the danger women face when they dare to step outside the "circle of protection".
