3 fun and feminist new fiction titles to spice up the festive season

These three new novels will add a punch of thrill and literary pleasure to your November.

Marriage and Masti

By Nisha Sharma

Following the success of her earlier Shakespearean-inspired rom-com novels, Dating Dr. Dil and Tastes Like Shakkar, US-based Indian-origin author Nisha Sharma has published the finale in the trilogy, Marriage and Masti (HarperCollins India, INR 499) this season. The book brings a subversive twist to Shakespeare’s classic Twelfth Night, adding a contemporary perspective and a feminist take to a familiar old romance.

The book revolves around ambitious career-driven millennials Veera and Deepak, who end up being ‘accidentally married’ – though there are plenty of spicy and clever twists on the way. Readers will enjoy the humour and will relate to the travails of single, successful women who feel alienated after all their girlfriends tie the knot. The book also sends a motivational message to all the brown women out there – to keep your standards high and be ready to receive love as much as to give it.

Having given up a successful corporate career – where she headed diversity initiatives in multinational companies – Nisha Sharma is now a novelist based in Philadelphia, USA. Married to an Alaskan, she has a “plethora” of pets, whom she has named after literary characters. She is currently pursuing her PhD in English and Social Justice.

An Astonishment of Stars

By Kirti Bhadresa

An Astonishment of Stars (ECW Press, INR 1295) by Calgary-based author Kirti Bhadresa is a short-story collection that explores the often-invisible lives of BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of colour) women in Canada.

The characters seem familiar and highly relatable as they walk through their days, navigating mundane microaggressions, trying on ill-fitting roles, managing emotions they never allow others to see, and shouldering the burdens of memory and expectations.

Kirti Bhadresa calls herself “a keen observer of humanity”, especially of BIPOC women “whose domestic and professional work is the backbone of late-stage capitalism but whose lives receive so little attention in mainstream culture”. This collection attempts to “see those who are unseen”, and cuts to the heart of contemporary womanhood.

At a time when the Western world is increasingly mired in debates around immigration, sexism and racism, this book is a tender, humane inside look at community collisions and relationships both chosen and forced upon women.

Girls Who Stray

By Anisha Lalvani

Mumbai-based Anisha Lalvani makes her literary debut with Girls Who Stray (Bloomsbury, INR 699), taking a deep dive into the world of crime fiction. The story maps the intimate lives of modern Indian youth in present-day Delhi, replete with murders, sexual explorations, and messy family scenes set against a vibrant, contradictory cultural landscape.

The book’s heroine is a 23-year-old “unnamed” character, who returns from her UK university to suburban Noida in the outskirts of Delhi, where she has an affair with a real-estate developer and gets embroiled in a double murder. The book brings up issues related to sexual agency, economic inequality, love in a hypermodern landscape, and self-awareness amidst heartbreak.

A young communications professional at an Indian think tank, Anisha Lalvani has lived in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and London, and has worked in publishing and television. Girls Who Stray, which releases this month, is her first novel, and promises to be a thrilling read, appealing to lovers of mystery novels and literary fiction alike.