In Mansi Shah's stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family's past in search of where she truly belongs. After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm. But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she'll have to face her estranged parents...and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family's battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her.

A heartfelt story that spans continents and generations, about a young woman who searches for answers about a mother she barely remembers. Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For twenty-two years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering truth: her mother didn't die. She left. Nita Shah had everything most women dreamed of in her hometown of Ahmedabad, India-a loving husband, a doting daughter, financial security-but in her heart, she felt like she was living a lie. Fueled by her creative ambitions, Nita moved to Paris, the artists' capital of the world-even though it meant leaving her family behind. But once in Paris, Nita's decision and its consequences would haunt her in ways she never expected. Now that Sophie knows the truth, she's determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impending arranged marriage. In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother. Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nita, she may just also discover parts of herself she never knew.

This book documents an indigenous building technique called the kath-khuni construction prevalent in Himachal Pradesh, India. The relative isolation of the hills and the demanding environment fostered development and persistence of distinctive prathaa, i.e., traditions practiced for centuries. These building practices reflect synthesis of material and environmental constraints with social and cultural beliefs and rituals. This book illustrates the role of indigenous building traditions in a dual sense: architecture as an outcome of specific material assemblies to fulfil specific functional purposes and architecture as a process to bind together people, places and resources in order to sustain particular cultural norms, beliefs and values.