"The founder of a skincare line teeters on career-defining success when a bullish journalist sets out to write her inaugural profile, threatening to unearth her darkest secret-that she's not the wealthy socialite she portrays, but an immigrant of modest means who built a life on someone else's name. Perfect for readers of White Ivy and Yellowface.
People love a rags-to-riches story but hate a woman who lied to get ahead.
Ami Shah is on the brink of life-changing success. Her skin-care empire, Amala, is set for acquisition by a Fortune 500 company, and she has just been nominated for the Global Changemakers Award, the most revered entrepreneurial honor. There's just one problem: she's a complete and utter fraud.
Twenty years ago in Singapore, abandoned orphan Monica Joseph made a decision to steal her wealthy classmate's identity and move halfway around the world to build her life on someone else's name. For twenty years, she's managed to hide in plain sight…until an ambitious fledgling journalist sets out to write the inaugural full-length profile on her. With her carefully constructed persona and life's work now in jeopardy, Monica is left with no other choice: she must return to the scene of the crime-and the one place she vowed never to revisit.
Home."
"From the bestselling author of The Direction of the Wind and The Taste of Ginger comes an immersive, fun and heartfelt novel about a disgraced Indian American divorcée who spends a summer in Italy, reconnecting with her passion for cooking and reckoning with cultural expectations to make the choice of a lifetime.
Life's more fun when you ditch the recipe.
Jyoti is the "perfect" Indian American daughter: She stayed out of trouble, looked after her younger sisters, and married a man her parents approved of. So when her husband, Ashok, pushes her to quit her dream job as head chef to focus on conceiving, she obliges, knowing this will please her parents-only for Ashok to leave her when she cannot carry to term. Now unemployed, childless, and divorced, a disgrace to her Gujarati family, Jyoti books a ticket to Tuscany for the summer to visit her best friend (and fellow social outcast), Karishma.
Carbs, chianti, and la bella vita slowly restore Jyoti's confidence, inspiring her to experiment with Indian-Italian fusion recipes. But when she unexpectedly goes viral for her impromptu cooking vlogs-and candid vent sessions-her gossiping aunties have a field day. And when a shocking reveal comes to light, Jyoti must choose between family acceptance, a fulfilling career, and even motherhood, all before the summer ends…
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook."
"A heartfelt story that spans continents and generations, about a young woman who searches for answers about a mother she barely remembers.
Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For twenty-two years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering truth: her mother didn’t die. She left.
Nita Shah had everything most women dreamed of in her hometown of Ahmedabad, India—a loving husband, a doting daughter, financial security—but in her heart, she felt like she was living a lie. Fueled by her creative ambitions, Nita moved to Paris, the artists’ capital of the world—even though it meant leaving her family behind. But once in Paris, Nita’s decision and its consequences would haunt her in ways she never expected.
Now that Sophie knows the truth, she’s determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impending arranged marriage. In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother. Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nita, she may just also discover parts of herself she never knew."
"In Mansi Shah’s stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family’s past in search of where she truly belongs.
After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.
But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her."
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