Salena, the elder of two Cape sisters, is light-skinned and demure, an easy one to marry off to a husband of her parents' choosing. Zuhra is dark and wilful, refusing tradition and leaving the country in pursuit of her own destiny. 'The shoots of their lives grow apart and interlace again. Salena finds herself in a repressed marriage much like her mother's. Zuhra comes to suspect grim undercurrents to both their lives, which she expresses by retelling familiar fairytales, often hilariously, in a Muslim framework. 'But this is not a fairytale. The dark forest is real, and so are its secrets.