Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly. Long ago, she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena --- a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man --- Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment.

Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than 20 years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. Bhima’s fortunes take an unexpected turn when her path intersects with Parvati, a bitter, taciturn older woman. The two acquaintances soon form a tentative business partnership, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. As they work together, these two women seemingly bound by fate grow closer, each confessing the truth about their lives and the wounds that haunt them.

During a terrible heat wave in 1991, 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects alone for seven days. Hot, hungry and desperate, he shatters a window and climbs out. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, Judge David Coleman uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife --- actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come.

Lakshmi Patil is lost in the sadness of her life. Dr. Maggie Bose is adrift and in danger of ruining her marriage. Brought together by Lakshmi’s suicide attempt, both women begin to see life from a new perspective, and realize their lives are more than what they perceive and can be more than what they thought. They begin their relationship as patient and doctor, and end up in a weird quasi-friendship from which neither can walk away.

Laleh, Kavita, Armaiti and Nishta were best friends in their Bombay college days, but they have since drifted apart. When Armaiti, now in the United States, is diagnosed with cancer, the four reunite and discover the lasting power of friendship.

In this richly textured and engrossing novel, Thrity Umrigar explores the relationship between two women whose connection transcends their place at opposite ends of the social spectrum of modern-day Bombay. Weaving between past and present, Umrigar reveals their shared struggles, their solitary hardships and the secrets that threaten to destroy them both.