Secrets. Scandals. Politics. Romance.

In Aditi Bhide's stunning debut, one woman’s search for her past becomes a life-changing collision with colonial power and personal truth.

England, 1917. Eartha Rae has spent her life in institutions: an orphanage, a war hospital, and the narrow world of what others expect from a woman like her. Then a letter arrives from India, written by a woman claiming to be her aunt—and suddenly Eartha is on a ship to Bombay, chasing the first real answers she’s ever had about her parents.

In the humid heart of the Raj, Eartha finds a life both dazzling and dangerous: a grieving and eccentric uncle with secrets of his own, rigid memsahibs guarding their rules, a teacher who sees her as more than a servant-class orphan, and a forest officer whose smile makes her forget her fear. But the deeper she enters this world, the more she realizes her family’s past is tangled in jealousy, guilt, and a tragedy no one has ever fully named.

As India itself begins to stir with the promise of self-rule, Eartha must decide whether belonging means obedience—or courage. And when the truth finally comes into focus, will it set her free, or cost her the home she has only just begun to build?

If you love atmospheric fiction with hidden identities, forbidden romance, and moral reckoning, this one belongs on your shelf.