Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Reese's Book Club Pick

Reese Witherspoon's Book Club Pick

A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women's lives at all ages--a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.

Every woman has a secret life . . .

Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she's spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father's death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London's close-knit Punjabi community.

Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected--and exciting--kind.

As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community's "moral police." But when the widows' gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife--a modern woman like Nikki--and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.

Author: Balli Kaur Jaswal
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Published: 06/13/2017
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780062645128

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 02/01/2017 pg. 46
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2017
Publishers Weekly 04/10/2017
Library Journal 02/01/2017
Booklist 04/15/2017 pg. 18
Shelf Awareness 06/23/2017
Shelf Awareness 12/12/2017