East of Aden — Elisabeth McNeill

In the 1960s, three starry-eyed young women called Jess, Joan and Jackie, meet in Bombay when their husbands go to work in the Indian city. They are happy and excited at the prospect of living abroad and do not believe a cynical member of the expatriate society who warns them that when European women go to live east of Aden, their lives change completely. Soon, however, all three friends discover the truth of the warning and due to circumstances beyond their control, they are forced to go home, and they lose touch. Forty years later Jess decides to seek out her old friends to find out how life turned out for them after they left India behind. The results are surprising.