On a rainy afternoon in Cherrapunji, the postman arrives with a letter for fourteen-year-old Saphira, and her life will never be the same. Dalinia, meanwhile, seems to have the perfect life: successful husband, cute children, a beautiful home. But her troubled past refuses to disappear, and the emergence of a handsome competitor at the local golf course brings it back in disturbing fashion. Written in a lyrical, yet plainspoken style, this collection of ten short stories tells of love, loss, and longing, set against the brilliantly realized backdrop of contemporary Meghalaya, in India's northeast. Readers of contemporary fiction will find themselves transported-into other lives and other places-but they will recognize the dilemmas, the heartbreaks, and the emotions as those common to all humanity.