Tamarind and the Star of Ishta

Raised in England by her Indian father, Tamarind never knew her seldom-discussed mother, Chinty, who died from an illness shortly after her birth. But when her father and new stepmother, Chloe, who cues as white, leave for their honeymoon, Tamarind is sent to meet her late mother’s family and visit India for the first time, spending a week during monsoon season in the family’s Himalayan mansion. She arrives with big feelings—including resentment of Chloe as well as curiosity about her cultural heritage and her mother. But her extended family proves as mum as her father about the details of Chinty’s life and death. Tamarind meets an enigmatic spirit, Ishta, in the atmospheric mansion’s luxuriant gardens. As Tamarind works to accept changes, Ishta provides her with answers about her mother’s life and death—and allows the family to confront their frozen grief. In Bilan’s (Aarti & the Blue Gods) supernatural-leaning contemporary novel, lushly descriptive prose, presented in Tamarind’s reportorial first-person voice, underlines the book’s essential themes of family and heritage, while a sensitive excavation of loss and family dynamics grounds the title’s otherworldly elements. Ages 8–12. (June)