At the tender age of 17, Nazneen’s life is turned upside down. Following an arranged marriage, she is obliged to exchange her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s East End. In this new world, she pines for her sister and the people she left behind. While trying to do her duty to her husband and raise her family, she struggles to make sense of her existence... Until the day that Karim, a hot-headed local man, bursts into her life. Set against a background of escalating racial tension, they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her life.