FAQs

The novel came from an intuitive moment at home, imagining what might happen if a young celebrity were approached by someone with harmful intentions. It’s primarily a romance, with thriller elements, exploring how such an incident could upend a woman’s love life and career.

Challenging, but fun. It required research into the characters’ professions, family dynamics, Parsi language and customs, football and medicine — plenty of time on Google Maps, and interviews with people in the TV and film industry, over several years.

Every reader takes something different from it — recognition, entertainment, or simply being transported into the story. It was written with Indian women especially in mind, but with an international audience too.

Sameer Seth — his voice came first, and he’s complex: neither purely villain nor saint, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Cyrus Daruwalla was also a particular joy to write.

No small feat. Literary agent Suhail Mathur of The Book Bakers championed the manuscript, and it was published by Vishwakarma Publications, a well-known Indian publisher and title sponsor of the Pune International Literary Festival.