Girl in
A Red
Silk Sari

Previously published as Peacocks Dancing (HarperCollins 2001) and
The Lost Daughter of India (Bookouture 2017).

Girl in a Red Silk Sari

Her life is low, but her price is high.

When Caroline, from a wealthy American family, meets Kamal, she knows they belong together. Kamal also comes from wealth; but he’s Indian, and Caroline’s parents object to the union. They marry anyway, and fly off to South India to start their married life together.

But rural India does not live up to Caroline’s idealistic vision, and Kamal’s work keeps them apart. A daughter, Asha, is born, but Caroline struggles with motherhood as well as loneliness amid the stark reality of Indian village life. Illness sends her back to America, where she plans to build a new life for them all, while Asha remains happy and well-cared-for with her Indian foster family.

But nothing goes according to plan…

Ten years later:

Asha is only thirteen when she loses her beloved foster parents in a tragic accent. She ends up in the hands of unscrupulous child traffickers in Mumbai’s notorious Red-Light District: on the market as a high-value virgin, on sale to the highest bidder.

Once so deeply in love but now estranged for many years, Caroline and Kamal must reunite to rescue their beloved daughter from an appalling fate. They must find that needle in a haystack: one little lost girl in the anonymous crowds and chaos of an Indian megacity. A seemingly impossible task.

But when Asha’s beloved foster sister, street-smart Janiki who has special skills of her own, joins the search, Caroline and Kamal discover that with the courage born of desperation, nothing is impossible. They must find Asha before it’s too late.

(In spite of the truly horrific subject matter, I assure readers that there are no graphic details of child sexual abuse in this story.)