From the author of Fear and Lovely: “A large book in every sense, a panorama filled with insight and surprise, inviting, absorbing and satisfying.” —The Boston Globe

Shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award

In an ordinary New Delhi neighborhood, fatherless twelve-year-old Mallika is full of romantic dreams. Her mother, her mother’s friends, her aunt, her grandmother—none of them understand what it means to be passionate, to feel sorrow or excitement, to yearn. Or so she believes.

In truth, these six women have secrets and desires and complicated pasts that Mallika cannot yet comprehend—and their seemingly dull, safe lives are anything but . . .

“An eloquent interweaving of perspectives . . . Appachana succeeds in drawing us deep into this complex vision of shattered happiness and withered dreams.” —The New York Times

“Intensely lyrical.” —Publishers Weekly

“Appachana can imbue the texture of women’s quotidian existence with solidity and substance.” —Meenakshi Mukherjee, award-winning author of The Perishable Empire

Praise for Anjana Appachana

“An extremely gifted writer.” —Sunday Observer