As Sweet as Honey

An enchanting story of family life that is a dance of love and grief and rebirth set on a gorgeous island in the Indian Ocean The island is filled with exotic flora and fauna and perfumed air. A large family compound is presided over by a benign, stalwart grandmother. There is a very tall South Asian heroine with the astonishing un-Indian name of Meterling, who has found love at last in the shape of a short, round, elegant Englishman who wears white suits. There are also numerous aunts, uncles and young cousins - among them Mina, grown now, and narrating this story of a marriage ceremony that ends with a widowed bride who, in the midst of her grief, discovers she is pregnant. While enjoying their own games and growing-up pains, Mina and her young cousins follow every nuance of gossip, trying to puzzle out what is going on with their favourite aunt, particularly when the groom's cousin arrives from England and begins to woo her. As Meterling - torn between Eastern and Western ideas of love and family, duty and loyalty - struggles to make a new life, we become as entranced with this family, its adventures and complications, as Mina is. And with her, we celebrate a time and place where, although sometimes difficult, life was for the most part as sweet as honey.