The mango season

... this ... novel takes us to modern India during the height of the summers mango season. Heat, passion, and controversy explode as a woman is forced to decide between romance and tradition ... Priya Rao left India when she was twenty to study in the U.S., and shes never been back. Now, seven years later, shes out of excuses. She has to return and give her family the news: Shes engaged to Nick Collins, a kind, loving American man. Its going to break their hearts. Returning to India is an overwhelming experience for Priya. When she was growing up, summer was all about mangoesripe, sweet mangoes, bursting with juices that dripped down your chin, hands, and neck. But after years away, she sweats as if shes never been through an Indian summer before. Everything looks dirtier than she remembered. And things that used to seem natural (a buffalo strolling down a newly laid asphalt road, for example) now feel totally chaotic. But Priyas relatives remain the same. Her mother and father insist that its time they arranged her marriage to a nice Indian boy. Her extended family talks of nothing but marriage particularly the marriage of her uncle Anand, which still has them reeling. Not only did Anand marry a woman from another Indian state, but he also married for love. Happiness and love are not the point of her grandparents or her parents union. In her familys rule book, duty is at the top of the list. Just as Priya begins to feel she can't possibly tell her family that she's engaged to an American, a secret is revealed that leaves her stunned and off-balance. Now she is forced to choose between the love of her family and Nick, the love of her life.-Dust jacket.

Originally published: New York : Ballantine Books, 2004.