Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki

Bitter Sweets

Roopa Farooki

This light snack of a read tells the story of three generations of a Bangladeshi family who move to London. Each generation practises deceit and hides the truth, causing much pain and confusion along the way, but this also creates much of the humour. You soon become attached to these less than perfect people. This novel will appeal to readers who like both sweet and sour pickles with their meal.

Extract
The engagement thus confirmed, Ricky truly was the happiest man on earth. Barely six months before, his daughter had eloped with a Pakistani, leaving him bereft and abandoned in his dark Dhaka house, with no one to love him and nothing to reflect upon except how his life had passed him by and how it was too late, much too late, to do anything about it. Now he had a job and a home in England, and a woman who both loved and needed him, who had agreed to marry him, and was about to bear his child. His real life had begun, and taken over the old life that he had doffed as quickly as he doffed his old name. He was looking forward to his first English Christmas with Verity, and the only dark clouds on the horizon were the fortnightly trips back to Bangladesh, to keep up appearances with Henna.
Parallels
  • The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Brick Lane by Monica Ali
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Explicit sexual content