Tulsi Gupta, her mother and grandmother run a spice shop in Salem focusing on ayurverdict healing. But Tusli feels stuck, to keep her family legacy she should take over the shop but deep down that’s not what she wants to do. Her whole life has been about the shop and at 30 years old she has no sense of self. 

The story centers on the Gupta family and their shop and also their lack of family history. It becomes apparent very quickly that they just don’t talk about anything difficult, Tulsi doesn’t even know her deceased fathers name because she avoids upsetting her mother by leaving it alone. There seems to be many secrets of the past that the elders of the family are content to forget and never speak of again. The writing is simple to read and you get a sense for the family dynamics, characters and setting quickly. Even though it’s low stakes fiction and obviously will have a HEA the family dynamics and turmoil felt real. Overall it’s a lighthearted and feel good story, I loved the other characters in town and how they all worked together. Some of the references to pop culture made me laugh (Yes, chef 🐻) I also really appreciated the authors note about the hyphen connecting cultures, I’m Indian-Canadian so I really related. I did enjoy the commentary about Ayurvedic practices, that while they belong to no one culture in particular, real knowledge is required to make true use of the spices and blends. Not just quick social media remedies. It’s seemed like a light way to touch on cultural appropriation without getting too deep 

The Curious Secrets of Yesterday publishes on June 1. Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Namrata Patel for this e-ARC