Ladies Coupe — Anita Nair

Akhila is forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has always been the backbone of her impossibly demanding family--until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to a resort town. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car--the Ladies Coupe--the women share their lives, their loves, their heartaches, and their triumphs. All of this leads Akhila to answer the question that has always haunted her: has her life been complete without a man?

This wonderfully atmospheric, deliciously warm novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with husbands, mothers, friends, employers, and children are the same the world over.