For
a limited time, download A DISTANT HEART for just $2.99!
Infused
with the rhythms of life in modern-day India, acclaimed author Sonali
Dev’s candid, rewarding novel beautifully evokes all the
complexities of the human heart in A DISTANT HEART.
“Searingly asks its characters what they’re willing to do for the people they love… explores family dynamics, class issues, and many layers of guilt, hope, and determination in ways that are both distinctly Indian and universally luminous. Another beautiful, breathtaking novel from a not-to-be-missed author.” – Kirkus, STARRED Review
“Searingly asks its characters what they’re willing to do for the people they love… explores family dynamics, class issues, and many layers of guilt, hope, and determination in ways that are both distinctly Indian and universally luminous. Another beautiful, breathtaking novel from a not-to-be-missed author.” – Kirkus, STARRED Review
Add A DISTANT HEART to your TBR pile on Goodreads then keep reading for a sample excerpt from A DISTANT HEART!
Check
out the Book Trailer!
Direct
link
Title:
A
Distant Heart
Author:
Sonali Dev
Genre:
Romantic Women’s Fictoin
Release
Date: December
26, 2017
Publisher:
Kensington
Page
Count:
100k
Print
ISBN: 978-1496705761
Digital
ISBN:
B06XZR97YK
Synopsis:
Her
name means “miracle” in Sanskrit, and to her parents, that’s
exactly what Kimaya is. The first baby to survive after several
miscarriages, Kimi grows up in a mansion at the top of Mumbai’s
Pali Hill, surrounded by love and privilege. But at eleven years old,
she develops a rare illness that requires her to be confined to a
germ-free ivory tower in her home, with only the Arabian Sea churning
outside her window for company. . . . Until one person dares venture
into her world.
Tasked
at fourteen years old with supporting his family, Rahul Savant shows
up to wash Kimi’s windows, and an unlikely friendship develops
across the plastic curtain of her isolation room. As years pass,
Rahul becomes Kimi’s eyes to the outside world–and she becomes
his inspiration to better himself by enrolling in the police force.
But when a life-saving heart transplant offers the chance of a real
future, both must face all that ties them together and keeps them
apart.
As
Kimi anticipates a new life, Rahul struggles with loving someone he
may yet lose. And when his investigation into an organ black market
ring run by a sociopathic gang lord exposes dangerous secrets that
cut too close to home, only Rahul’s deep, abiding connection with
Kimi can keep her safe–and reveal the true meaning of courage,
loss, and second chances.
Infused
with the rhythms of life in modern-day India, acclaimed author Sonali
Dev’s candid, rewarding novel beautifully evokes all the
complexities of the human heart.
Available
at:
A
Distant Heart Excerpt
Copyright
© 2017 Sonali Dev
Freedom
was a beautiful thing! Mumbai in all its grimy, gray, pre-monsoon
glory flew past Kimi as her auto-rickshaw sped between cars and
pedestrians with the zeal of a bastard child born of a Diwali rocket
and an immortal god. She almost asked the driver to slow down, but
with the wind whipping her ponytail and the driver’s mop of curls
in a joint symphony she felt as recklessly brave as the whirring
vehicle racing along on its three wheels.
Emblazoned
across the dashboard of the rickshaw was the goddess Durga dancing on
the corpse of a demon like the evil-hunting badass she was. Bowing to
her was Bollywood’s favorite superhero, Krish, with his muscles
bulging like fat rubber balls and his hair coiffed high. In a perfect
background score to Kimi’s life’s drama, the techno-beat-laden
remix of an old Bollywood number drowned out the cacophony of horns
the driver left in his wake.
The
combination was delicious and exactly worthy of what she had just
done. What she was about to do.
Freedom!
You
know who else was badass? Kimaya Kirit Patil, that’s who.
There
had been one hundred and twelve instances over twelve years when each
breath had been a fight and her limbs had turned to mist. She had
fought. Not like a warrior, because that would involve the use of
said limbs, but like someone drowning, where all you could do is keep
the water out of your nose, so it wouldn’t keep the air from your
lungs. Breathe out. Breathe out. She had followed those breaths.
Grabbed on to those thin wisps of air like lifelines and made herself
live one grip at a time.
Then
the cure she had waited twelve years for in a sterile room had come.
A heart had become available. Surely that meant something. Someone
had died, after all, so she might live. Someone with the exact kind
of blood and plasma that would let a foreign heart beat within her
chest with the confidence of an indegene. Surely that meant she could
now have what she never thought she would—all that she had gazed
upon from the windows of her room, sealed tight with every technology
known to man, so no germ, no pathogen would dare venture into her
world, let alone an entire human being. Except Rahul—he had
ventured. And then gone on venturing until he was all the way inside.
He’d
helped her understand calculus and the nuanced stories of Premchand.
He had known how atoms split, why Europe went to war twice within
half a century, and the why and when of each invention that
transformed the history of civilization. He had touched her, despite
promises he’d made. Because it was exactly what she had needed. His
gloved hand in hers. He had given her anything she had asked for when
everyone else had been too afraid. And she had known that if she
lived, if her parents got what they had sealed her in a room twelve
years for—a daughter who lived—she would spend the rest of that
life taking care of him. The way he had taken care of her.
Except
she hadn’t considered the most important part of her plan: him. She
had returned from Hong Kong with her new heart and he had looked at
her with those dark-tar eyes turned even darker by all that emotion
when she ran to him. “You’re running,” he had said, as usual
choosing the least words to say the most.
“Yes,”
she had said, knowing exactly why every single hard-won breath had
been worth it. But then she had told him her grand plan: the two of
them living happily ever after.
As
always she had asked him for what she wanted. What she hadn’t for
one moment considered that he didn’t also want.
He
had thanked her for the offer to love him forever, and passed on it.
The
person who had kept her from being alone when she was locked up in a
room had finally shown her what loneliness was when he walked away
from her, leaving her alone in the crowded world she had craved for
so long.
No
one had the right to that kind of power.
She
leaned back into the overstuffed vinyl seat of the speeding
auto-rickshaw feeling awfully light.
It
only made sense that losing a part of yourself would bring lightness.
No.
She wasn’t doing that. She was not going all morose and doing the
Tragic Princess shit anymore. That wasn’t her. No matter how people
saw her, that was not her. Not anymore.
Actually,
it had never been her. Why the hell was she letting herself go down
that path now?
She
was past the Rahul-induced sadness. Done with it. He’d made his
intentions clear. They were no longer—well, they just weren’t
anymore. Nothing, anything, they just weren’t.
Plato
would ask if the fact that they weren’t anymore meant they had
never been. Or was it Aristotle? You know who would know? The one
person who she could not, would not, call for a fact check. This
wasn’t a Tragic Princess thought, but here it was anyway: She had
to stop thinking of life in terms of thoughts she saved up for Rahul
like seashells collected on a walk along the beach. It was time.
Praise
for A DISTANT HEART
“Dev crafts
another thrilling story filled with intense drama, deep emotion, and
well-developed characters; a can’t-put-down book.”—Library
Journal, STARRED Review
“Thrilling action
sequences and a complex, weighty romance propel this smart, sensitive
story. A natural wordsmith, Dev dives into the psyches of disparate
characters with voice-driven prose that includes both chilling
insights and quirky humor… This poignant, sensual, and exciting
tale captures a range of emotions and conflicts.”—Booklist, STARRED
Review
“Award-winning Dev
returns with another of her emotionally resonating stories that
explore, in depth, the intersection of friendship, love, sacrifice
and desperation… There is a tremendous richness to this story…
A truly captivating tale of friendship and love. Dev always
delivers!”—RT
Book Reviews,
4.5 Stars, TOP PICK!
About
Sonali Dev
Sonali
Dev’s first literary work was a play about mistaken identities
performed at her neighborhood Diwali extravaganza in Mumbai. She was
eight years old. Despite this early success, Sonali spent the next
few decades getting degrees in architecture and writing, migrating
across the globe, and starting a family while writing for magazines
and websites. With the advent of her first gray hair her mad love for
telling stories returned full force, and she now combines it with her
insights into Indian culture to conjure up stories that make a mad
tangle with her life as supermom, domestic goddess, and world
traveler.
Sonali
lives in the Chicago suburbs with her very patient and often amused
husband and two teens who demand both patience and humor, and the
world’s most perfect dog.
Sonali’s
novels have been on Library Journal,
NPR, Washington Post,
and Kirkus’s lists
of Best Books of the year. She won the American
Library Association’s award for best romance 2014,
and is a RITA® finalist, RT Reviewer
Choice Award Nominee, and winner of
the RT Seal of Excellence.
She was hailed by NPR.org as a ‘stunning debut’.
0 comments:
Post a Comment