I have absolutely no memory of why I picked up this book; I think it must have been on a highly recommended list somewhere. But hey, looked interesting and I'll read almost anything that looks interesting. And it was!

On the surface it's a fairly ordinary story about Nikki, a first-generation immigrant living in London, recently dropped out of law school and looking for work besides the bartending that's paying the rent. She has fairly normal things to deal with: her mother's recently widowed and still upset Nikki moved out to live on her own, her sister Mindi desperately wants to get married, and Nikki's still trying to figure out what to do with her life. Then Nikki sees a job advertisement to teach women's creative writing classes at a Sikh temple in Southall, and gets the position.

Kulwander, the woman who hires Nikki and who is trying to get this class established as a first step to convincing the temple to create more women's support groups, doesn't speak English very well yet. So, what Nikki thinks she is being hired to teach (creative writing classes), and what Kulwander thinks she is going to teach (women learning to read and write), don't entirely align. Nikki shows up on the first day and discovers the class Kulwander has rounded up - mostly older punjabi widows with a pretty limited use of English - mostly can't even read or write. She tries to introduce them to simple reading using children's workbooks, but they're bored silly reading "cat" and "dog" and so on. When they accidentally come across a book of erotic story that Nikki has picked up for her sister as a joke, they decide start to make up their own stories, learning storytelling and creative writing in a more "adult" theme.

Nikki's torn between the fact this is clearly a liberating and empowering experience for the widows - not to mention hilarious (the punjabi women don't know the words for many bits of anatomy, so everything tends to get described in terms of vegetables) - and the fact it's actually great creative writing practice, and the fact that Kulwander would fire her if she ever found out, not to mention the possible repercussions from the strictly fundamentalist "brothers" who take it on themselves to enforce morality around the temple. As the stories are written down and friends show copies to other friends here and there, they rapidly spread throughout the punjabi community of London until Nikki's classes are overflowing and of course chaos predictably breaks out as Kulwander returns and walks in on a class.

The above shenanigans make for a very entertaining read but a pretty typical romantic fiction novel, but this book goes a level deeper. Intertwined through the main story there is also the unsolved death of Kulwander's daughter, Nikki's guilt at the death of her father, even an attempted murder, and all throughout, the characters deal directly or indirectly with many thought-provoking portrayals and discussions of topics relevant to the Southall immigrant community. Nikki and her sister argue the merits of arranged marriage; the Brothers illustrate the dangers of fundamentalist moral policing in a religious community; the elder widows struggle with the difficulties of new immigrants adapting to a country and language where they don't feel confident in their ability to understand or be understood and where outsiders mock or are outright rude to them; how upholding "morality" and "honour" can lead to crimes against women and children being hidden and ignored; and how women in general and particularly older women are not "supposed" to talk about, invite, or enjoy sex at all.

You can enjoy the story at the light, fluffy level as you read through, but days after you finish you'll find yourself still thinking about some of the deeper issues listed above. Which makes it more than just a fluffy fiction beach novel, and makes it not quite like anything I've read before, an odd mix of romantic fiction, thought-provoking examination of immigrant and women's issues, and yes, excerpts of definitely racy erotica as sections of the widows' stories are included. So if you get the audiobook, maybe use earbuds!