A family, broken by the shattering turns of a single day, will do anything to find their way back to one another.
Lena Sharma is a successful San Francisco restaurateur. An immigrant, she's cultivated an image of conservatism and tradition in her close-knit Indian community. But when Lena's carefully constructed world begins to crumble, her ties to her daughter, Maya, and son, Sameer-both raised in thoroughly modern California-slip further away.
Maya, divorced once, becomes engaged to a man twelve years her junior: Veer Kapoor, the son of Lena's long-time friend. Immediately Maya feels her mother's disgrace and the judgment of an insular society she was born into but never chose, while Lena's cherished friendship frays. Meanwhile, Maya's younger brother, Sameer, struggles with an addiction that reaches a devastating and very public turning point, upending his already tenuous future.
As the mother, daughter, and son are compromised by tragedy, secrets, and misconceptions, they each must determine what it will take to rebuild their bonds and salvage what's left of their family.
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Sameer's laugh sounded like a trapped wasp - like he was always just a moment away from breaking. 1
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(Lake Union Publishing, 1 August 2022, ebook, 331 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle, #AmazonFirstReads)
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This is a new author for me. I really enjoyed No Ordinary Thursday. I loved the title of the book, it's simple yet effective and really links to theme of the book, how people cope when the rug is yanked from beneath their feet. I liked the fact the book doesn't just focus on what happens to Sameer and who this impacts the rest of the family but also focuses on other life-altering events that happen around the same time. I found this an engrossing read.
