December fiction: A new Amitav Ghosh novel and five other books to conclude this year’s reading

All information sourced from publishers.

Ghost Eye, Amitav Ghosh

Varsha Gupta wants fish for her lunch. Her family can’t understand it; the three-year-old has never tasted fish in her life. The Guptas are strict vegetarians and don’t allow it inside their Calcutta mansion. But Varsha claims she can remember another life: a mud house by a river where she caught and cooked fish with a different mother.

Perplexed, the Guptas turn to Dr Shoma Bose, a psychiatrist who has been investigating what are known as “cases of the reincarnation type” for years. But Shoma’s understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha’s revelations.

Half a century later, when Varsha’s therapeutic case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, Shoma’s nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. And as Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface.

Why I Killed My Husband and Other Such Stories, Anita Nair

Each of the six stories in this arresting volume cleverly captures the interplay between the personal and the political while exploring the everyday existence of Indians across different social strata.

A landowner contemptuous of political activism finds it taking root in his own home. A couple’s holiday takes a surprising turn when they initiate a role-playing game. In a traditional akhara in northern India, caste drives the plot as much as the characters’ will. A woman’s marriage quickly morphs into an endless series of humiliations – until she decides to do something about it.

The tales are set in different parts of the country: a small town in Karnataka, a temple town and a village across the border in Kerala, cosmopolitan Chennai and Bengaluru, and a farm near Hathras in Uttar Pradesh. They explore a range of themes, from gender violence to pandemic lockdowns and cyber fraud, fusing incisive social commentary with deeply evocative emotional truths.

Rukmini Aunty and the RK Narayan Fan Club, Sita Bhaskar

Rukmini aunty’s newly built house in Mysore is near a dilapidated relic with its roof caved in, marring the view from her specially designed Zen-like meditation nook. She abhors the house that reeks of litigation and lawsuits and wants it gone, until she discovers that the house belonged to the illustrious writer, RK Narayan. It is close to being torn down brick by brick, when the city authorities step in and designate it as a Heritage building and stop the demolition. The fate of Narayan’s abode hangs between the builder’s scalpel and the limited coffers of the city, while they scramble for funds to buy it from his heirs at the prevailing market rate. Only Rukmini aunty and the RK Narayan Fan Club ladies group in her neighbourhood can now save the house.

Lightning in a Shot Glass, Deepanjana Pal

Things are not going well for Mumbai flatmates Meera and Aalo. 40-year-old journalist Meera is convinced she’s confronting a midlife crisis, even as she boards a train to Kandivali to hook up with an impossibly young colleague. Twenty-nine-year-old Aalo-professionally and emotionally adrift-ends up sliding into the DMs of a ravishing (and far-away) war photographer, after embarking upon a mission to date anyone who is not right of centre.

Alongside these fledgling infatuations, which seem determined not to remain casual, Meera and Aalo have to navigate the politics at work and manage parents who are as loving as they are xenophobic. If they are able to survive in this labyrinth, it's because they can lean on a chosen family of fiercely loyal girlfriends, and the city of Mumbai, which brings out selves they didn’t know they possessed.

The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, Tarana Husain Khan

In the royal courts of 19th-century Rampur, courtesan–poet Munni Bai Hijab captivates the legendary Urdu poet Dagh Dehlvi, who immortalises her in his verses while inadvertently eclipsing her voice.

More than a century later, Rukmini, an aspiring writer, stumbles upon Dagh’s letters in the archives of the Rampur Raza Library and finds herself drawn to the fierce, flickering presence of Munni Bai Hijab. Torn between worlds – a Hindu woman in a Muslim household, a cosmopolitan spirit in a conservative town – Rukmini begins to trace the forgotten threads of Hijab's story, even as her own life starts to unravel. Her husband chases yet another doomed business idea. Her daughter walks away from medical school. And when her friendship with Daniyal, the stoic guardian of Rampur’s past, deepens into desire, Rukmini must confront her greatest fear: becoming her mother, the woman who once walked away from their family.

The Wrong Way Home, Shunali Khullar Shroff

At 40, Nayantara is blindsided by her celebrity ex-husband’s second marriage to a hot, young influencer on the heels of a divorce that leaves her broke, single and discarded by the society she once thrived in. Desperate to prove she’s still relevant, Nayan sets out to rebuild her PR business, chasing power, money and visibility with a hunger she didn’t know she possessed. Among the clients she sets out to restitute are an ageing movie star terrified of irrelevance, a politician in urgent need of image rescue, and a socialite with small-town roots trying to reinvent herself as a cultural tastemaker. In the middle of this, Nayan is pulled between two men. One offers steadiness and clarity. The other is charm, glitter and temptation. Buffeted by the contradictions of ambition and love, right and wrong, Mumbai’s relentless hustle and Landour’s quieter pull, she must decide what really matters in a world obsessed with appearances.