Trisha Sakhlecha

Fifteen years ago, three sixteen-year-old girls meet at Wescott, an exclusive private school in India.

Two, Sabah and Noor, are the most popular girls in their year. One, Alia, is a new arrival from England, who feels her happiness depends on their acceptance.

Before she knows it, Sabah and Noor’s intoxicating world of privilege and intimacy opens up to Alia and, for the first time, after years of neglect from her parents, she feels she is exactly where, and with whom, she belongs.

But with intimacy comes jealousy, and with privilege, resentment, and Alia finds that it only takes one night for her bright new world to shatter around her.

Now Alia, a cabinet minister in the Indian government, is about to find her secrets have no intention of staying buried . . .

This is a really well written plot. The atmosphere for the entire book is set from the first page and it is maintained right till the end.

The description and the development of each of the characters was so good. There is a suspense or a hidden agenda in almost each and every event that takes place in the lives of all the three main characters. The inclusion of some of the serious topics and issues prevalent in the Indian political system added the additional element.

Everything ties up together to make for a shocking and spectacular twist at the end. All in all, the secrets, lies, struggle for power and twists are what make this book an excellent and thrilling read.

Thank You NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC!… (mehr)

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

This opens with the police coming to question Roy about the disappearance of an assistant he has worked with called Emily. Immediately there are clues that Roy has been lying to Mia. Then the narrative flashes back a few months to Mia and Roy helping to host the wedding of Mia's sister in India.The author gradually describes the deceptions Roy practises on Mia, but also the secrets Mia has been keeping from him (and the truths about her childhood which she has not recognized). It is only at the very end that the facts surrounding Emily's fate are cleared up.

I found this engrossing and the steady drip-feed of revelations was not too irritating, especially as Roy was reluctant to come clean for obvious reasons and Mia was (intentionally or not) lying to herself about certain things. The Indian setting for the wedding and the depictions of Mia and Roy's relationships with their own and each other's parents rang very true. Neither Mia nor Roy was a likeable character, and (while this was linked to her childhood experiences) Mia seemed unnaturally determined to cling to her marriage, especially as she was continually being held up as a career-minded, independent woman.

I was kept guessing right until the end as to how the author was going to bring everything together and make sense of the various plot strands, but she managed it!… (mehr)