A Good Wife

This is a modern-day fairy tale where the heroine saves her own life.

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**About the Book**

*She faced years of abuse after arriving in Canada as a teenage bride in a hastily arranged marriage, but nothing could stop Samra Zafar from pursuing her dreams.*
At sixteen, Samra Zafar had big dreams. She was going to go to university and forge her own path. Then, with almost no warning, those dreams were snatched away when she was suddenly married to a stranger at seventeen and had to leave behind her family in Pakistan and move to Canada. Her new husband and his family vowed that the marriage and the move would be a fulfillment of her dream, not a betrayal of it. But as the walls of their home slowly became a prison, Samra realized their promises were empty ones.
Desperate to get out and refusing to give up, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters. Slowly, over the months and years, she found the strength not only to build a new future, but also to walk away from her past.
*A Good Wife* tells the harrowing and inspiring story of a young girl who grows into a woman of courage and power in the face of oppression.

Starred Review on Quill and Quire

The Washington Post calls A Good Wife a top 10 book to read in 2019.

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Book Endorsements

Testimonials

SHARON BALA, bestselling author of The Boat People

“A teenage girl is pressured to marry a much older man and move to a foreign land. If you think you know this story, that it is a stereotype, you are wrong. A Good Wife is not the story of an abused woman. This is a memoir of ambition, how the very thing that lured Samra Zafar into an abusive marriage ultimately galvanized her escape and success. With unflinching candour, Zafar dissects the forces constricting her: culture, religion, her parents’ difficult marriage, their uneasy complicity in hers, the intergenerational expectations that shackled her in-laws, even her own naivete. Thorny and surprising, her story is all the more heartbreaking for its complexities. Zafar has penned a rare memoir, a life story worth reading and an emotional roller coaster that will leave you feeling empowered at the end. This is a modern-day fairy tale where the heroine saves her own life.”

LISA GABRIELE, author of the bestselling novel The Winters

“Samra Zafar’s harrowing story of escaping her abusive marriage in Canada – arranged when she was just a teenager in Pakistan – might read like a taut domestic thriller, but A Good Wife is all too painfully real. I cried while reading this book, but I was also left in awe of Zafar’s epic grit and bravery. Her story will stay with you long after the last hope-filled page is turned.”

SHAUNA SINGH BALDWIN, author of The Tiger Claw and The Selector of Souls

“The shining results of a partnership between a sensitive writer and an indomitable survivor of domestic abuse, this memoir chronicles the ebbs and flows of Samra Zafar’s courage as her home life began to control her every moment and shatter her spirit. To follow her descent into self-doubt and despair is to delve deeply into financial limitations, the requirements of assimilation into Canada and the constraints she faced as a parent. Whether you are trying to escape a life you never chose or the one you did, Samra’s resolve and ingenuity will inspire you to honour every flicker of longing for freedom.”

CEA SUNRISE PERSON, bestselling author of North of Normal

“A thoroughly engaging story of strength, feminism and international speaker, human rights refusal to conform to societal and familial expectations. activist, author and social entrepreneur. I found it difficult to put this book down.”