THE MANGO SEASON

A lushly written novel set in India at the height of the mango season--in which a young woman must decide to follow her heart or tradition.

Priya Rao left India when she was twenty to study in the U.S., and she’s never been back. Now, seven years later, she has to return and give her family the news: she’s engaged to Nick Collins, a kind, loving American man. It’s going to break their hearts.

Returning to India is an overwhelming experience for Priya. When she was growing up, summer was all about mangoes—ripe, sweet mangoes, redolent with juices that dripped down your mouth, hands, and neck. But after years away, she sweats as if she’s never been through an Indian summer before.

But Priya’s relatives remain the same. Her mother and father insist that it’s time they arranged her marriage to a “nice Indian boy.” Just as Priya begins to feel she can’t possibly tell her family that she’s engaged to an American, a secret is revealed that leaves her stunned and off-balance. Now she is forced to choose between the love of her family (and all that they represent) and Nick, the love of her life.

As sharp and intoxicating as sugarcane juice bought fresh from a market cart, The Mango Season is a delightful trip into the heart and soul of both contemporary India and a woman on the edge of a profound life change.

EDITIONS

Release: June 2003 (Hardcover)
Publisher: Ballantine Books (US)
Piatkus Books, UK (2003)
Penguin Books, India (2004)
Chungpodo Publishers, Korea (2005)
Eci Voor Boeken En Platen BV, Netherlands (2005)
Random House Mondadori, Spain (TBA)

I winced; I was doing that complaining-about-India thing all of us American-returned Indians did. I had lived here for twenty years, yet seven years later, the place was a hellhole.

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