A woman embarks on an unexpected journey into her past in an engrossing novel about identity, family secrets, and rediscovering the need to belong. Meena Dave is a photojournalist and a nomad. She has no family, no permanent address, and no long-term attachments, preferring to observe the world at a distance through the lens of her camera. But Meena's solitary life is turned upside down when she unexpectedly inherits an apartment in a Victorian brownstone in historic Back Bay, Boston. Though Meena's impulse is to sell it and keep moving, she decides to use her journalistic instinct to follow the story that landed her in the home of a stranger. It's a mystery that comes with a series of hidden clues, a trio of meddling Indian aunties, and a handsome next-door neighbor. For Meena it's a chance for newfound friendships, community, and culture she never thought possible. And a window into her past she never expected. Now as everything unknown to Meena comes into focus, she must reconcile who she wants to be with who she really is.

A perfumer in Paris is forced to return to her California roots in an exhilarating novel about family, self-discovery, and taking risks by the author of The Candid Life of Meena Dave. The daughter of proud Napa Valley hoteliers, Asha “Poppy” Patel chose a different line as a Paris perfumer, gifted with a nose for fragrances and business. Until her heightened sense of smell disappears. Her career in jeopardy, her world now muted, Poppy returns home. Maybe tending to her grandmother’s massive aromatic garden, where Poppy’s gift first flowered, will bring restorative hope. But when she arrives, Poppy discovers that the land upon which the beautiful garden once thrived has been uprooted and destroyed. She realizes that the years she spent away from her home have loosened so many ties with the past. Torn between a mother who lives vicariously through her and a father who wants her to embrace her family’s legacy, Poppy is determined to chart her own path of rediscovery. Poppy must juggle family drama, childhood friendships, and a former love to forge a future of her own choosing and, in time, heal an unscented life.