Thank you to Harper Collins for the Advanced Reader's Copy

Poignant and heart breaking, Manreet Sodhi Someshwar's The Radiance of a Thousand Suns unearths the hidden violence of the Indian Partition War and the subsequent anti-Sikh movement. Mixing in centuries old Mahabharata, decades old women's history and modern day New York, Someshwar creates a spell binding tale. From the domestic to the global stage, women are always subject to the threat of violence and rarely is it told in such a clear voiced manner.

As a South Asian, I appreciated this book as it brought to light aspects of my history that I didn't know about. When we talk about Partition, we talk about all the male freedom fighters. And yet, it is women who bear the brunt of war crimes. Women who are raped and shamed and beaten and abandoned. Women who hide in the shadows, waiting to exhale and tell their stories. Women like the powerful and complicated Jyoti Kaur, the mysterious figurehead Niki seeks out in the streets of New York. A gorgeous and powerful read.