Everything Happens for a Reason — Kavita Daswani

A witty, wry look at contemporary marriage and relationships, from the author of For Matrimonial Purposes. Priya, growing up in a comfortable home in Delhi, is the youngest of four sisters, but the first for whom a marriage has been arranged -- the other sisters all seem to have had a variety of reasons against husbands. Priya moves to Los Angeles where her new family have been established for some twenty years and while no woman in her family has ever had a job, she decides that in America, she should find one. And that's when the trouble begins! Her charm and dignity, as well as her discretion and sympathetic ways, raise her from receptionist to key interviewer on a glitzy media magazine in a short time. She knows that while a little job is OK with her in-laws, a career, western clothes and interviewing male stars in hotel rooms would be absolutely forbidden. So her double life -- American career woman versus traditional Hindu wife -- begins, and her longing for a different relationship with her husband grows. Funny and serious, full of rich comments on the pleasures and absurdities of life-styles in East and West, Everything Happens for a Reason is a charming contemporary novel, from a wonderful and unique author.