This linked short story collection follows women navigating love and betrayal across two countries—the U.S. and Uruguay—as political upheaval and cultural displacement test their resilience and agency. A twentysomething woman searches for love amid ethnocentric beliefs that attempt to erase her; a middle-aged daughter seeks love from her self-absorbed mother—a displaced immigrant who internalizes patriarchal views that she cannot exist without a man. In other stories, a character believes in the principles of the American Dream—equal opportunity and honesty—to such a degree he rejects his own culture, standing alone until he finds a compadre; and a woman refuses to allow her oppressive family and the Uruguayan dictatorship to silence her. The titular image, purple irises, which the protagonist confuses with other objects, embodies the collection's central theme: that things and people betray us—they’re not what they seem—but we can sometimes find resilience within our cultural and feminist worldviews. Narratives are mostly realistic, yet some stories take such deep psychological dives they nod toward the supernatural—magical realism or a feminist Gothic. In one story, for example, a house mirrors and supports its owner's responses to sociopolitical oppressions; in another a character welcomes a ghost to avoid loneliness.