In 1947, as Britain withdrew from India, it left in its wake a trail of vicious slaughter. British Iranian debut novelist Melody Razak introduces the (mostly) Brahmin residents of Delhi’s Pushp Vihar – “the House of Flowers” – whose lives become the tragic microcosm of...
*STARRED REVIEW Eleanor Brown’s (The Weird Sisters) latest is certainly good, focusing on a “Very Special Family” of four siblings and their three sets of adoptive parents committed to keeping the children together through Sunday dinners, holidays, and now an all-family, two-week vacation. And here’s where...
Sonali Dev concludes her Jane Austen-inspired Rajes series, narrated once more by Soneela Nankani, who ensures familiar continuity throughout the quartet. Interestingly, as if Emma wasn’t mainstream enough, Dev includes a snarky summary early on: “Emma is an overindulged, albeit well-meaning, brat who is looking for...
Fourteen voices (each embodying a specific poetic form!) – enlivened by 14 performers – take turns bearing witness in this novel in verse. Perspectives shift among the enslavers, the enablers to such inhumanity, their victims, and their descendants, revealing decades from capture to post-Civil War...
Sonali Dev continues to channel Jane Austen via the Raje family with her third in the series, familiarly, gratefully voiced by Indian American favorite Soneela Nankani. Dev opens with a literal bang: California gubernatorial candidate Yash Raje is shot during a rally. His physical recovery...
Prodigious Soneela Nankani – who reigns as the South Asian/South Asian American voice-of-choice – ventures onto onto a new continent, landing in Ghana to cipher debut novelist/gender scholar Peace Adzo Medie’s not-quite-Cinderella tale with energetic aplomb. Once upon a time, Afi was a poor village seamstress-in-training,...
Vikas Adam is three for three (because he’s that good) in voicing Sandhya Menon’s bestselling rom-com series. Rematched with Soneela Nankani after the success of There’s Something about Sweetie (2019), the pair presents Menon's latest frothy confection. The eponymous Pinky is another of Menon's feisty heroines...
After last year’s The Matchmaker’s List, Sonya Lalli and Soneela Nankani return together for another cross-cultural dramedy about the challenges of balancing filial duties and modern relationships. Anu Desai was the perfect daughter for her immigrant Indian parents: she married the first (and only) boy she kissed,...
Soneela Nankani continues to grow her resume as the South Asian American rom-com narrator-of-choice, once again convincingly transforming truculently mismatched sparks into eternally burning flames. In Canadian Sara Desai’s debut, Nankani introduces sparring partners, Layla and Sam, suddenly forced to share a San Francisco office...
They’re baaaaaaak, with Soneela Nankani repeating her aural support for welcome consistency. Bestselling Sonali Dev continues her Austen-inspired series starring the Indian royalty-descended, Northern California-established Raje family. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (2019) introduced the extended clan, matching neurosurgeon Trisha with chef DJ. In #2, Dev’s...
Vikas Adam has deservedly earned the title of Sandhya Menon’s male voice of choice, assuming hero status in all her titles thus far. He affably returns here as Ashish, the younger brother of Rishi from When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), and he’s about to get a Bollywood-worthy romance of...
At 29, Raina’s known true love, but also debilitating heartbreak when happily-ever-after didn’t happen. Still single, she reluctantly agrees to meet the men of her grandmother’s choosing. Not that her family is particularly marriageable: Nani seemed more servant than partner to Raina’s late grandfather, her...
Lauded for sweeping Bollywood-esque multicultural family dramas, Sonali Dev debuts an Austen-inspired series starring the Indian royalty-descended, Northern California-established Raje family. Her first installment riffs on P&P with an added gender mix-and-match. Second Raje daughter Trisha is an extraordinary Stanford neurosurgeon, but her personal relationships have...
Soneela Nankani instills a just-under-the-surface rage in Kat, a biracial Oakland teen who barely escaped being raped by another student, and whose mother sends her to Boston to finish junior year home-schooled by a family friend’s great-aunt. For Robin Thornton, who’s struggling with his transracial...
Much like the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent imprisoned during WWII by FDR’s Executive Order 9066, Muslim Americans are rounded up and incarcerated in an alternate, albeit all-too-familiar U.S. following the 2016 presidential election. Seventeen-year-old Layla and her parents are forcibly removed from their Los...
May is Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. Why May? The first Japanese people immigrated to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad – built mostly with immigrant Chinese labor – was completed on May 10, 1869. In 1977, Congressional legislation...
She can sound like a frightened little girl on the run or a gruff old man who’s seen it all. She can talk financial crises, offer self-help guidance, embody fantasy worlds, and channel her inner Gisele Bündchen. She narrates in multiple tongues, donning accents and...
Mr. Jha, who not so long ago comfortably supported his family on a monthly salary equivalent to $200, sells his website for $20 million. That titular windfall transforms his life, along with those of his family and friends. Money – who has it, how it’s...
Versatile, charming, culturally well-matched Soneela Nankani auspiciously voices Sujata Massey’s ("Rei Shimura" mysteries) promising new series set in early 20th-century colonial India. Here the author introduces feisty Perveen Mistry, India's first female solicitor in 1921. Perveen's debut dovetails her challenging career journey – from facing...
*STARRED REVIEW Difficult life circumstances bring together two Indian village girls: Poornima meets Savitha because Poornima's recently widowed father needs help weaving saris; clever, kind Savitha must help support her impoverished family. The pair are soon inseparable, nurturing each other in a society in which their...
