THE VINE OF DESIRE (2002)

Childhood friends Anju and Sudha -- who first appeared in the 1999 novel Sister of My Heart -- are reunited under difficult circumstances: Anju and her husband, Sunil, now settled in California's Bay Area, are still shaken from a recent miscarriage when newly separated Sudha flees Calcutta with her young daughter in tow and arrives on their doorstep. An old attraction between Sudha and Sunil is reignited, but there is something inherently sad and bleak about this illicit love affair; it is barely consummated before it is quashed. Though we catch one glorious glimpse of a reconciliation between the friends, it is too long in coming, and the novel gets bogged down in flowery language that borders dangerously on purple prose.