What Lies Between Us

By Nayomi Munaweera

Book Overview

Ganga, a young girl, grows up carefree in the midst of her loving family in an old and beautiful house nestled in the idyllic hill country of Sri Lanka. Her childhood is like any other--until it isn't. A cherished friendship is revealed to have monstrous undertones and the consequences of trauma spell both the end of her childhood and that of her stable home. Ostracized by their community in the wake of one terrible night, Ganga and her mother seek safety by immigrating to America.

In America Ganga must negotiate the challenges and thrills of an American teenage girlhood. She navigates immigrancy and thrives. She fulfills the American dream by graduating from college, moving to San Francisco and working as a nurse, yet beneath the surface the scars of her past continue to haunt her. When she meets Daniel, a handsome, charismatic man and falls deeply in love, it appears that she has found her happily ever after. Instead, the secrets continue to corrode and an accidental pregnancy causes the marriage to further unravel. She cannot resist an encroaching darkness, and she finally commits one terrible act.

From award-winning author Nayomi Munaweera comes What Lies Between Us, the confession of a woman, driven by the demons of her past to commit a single and possibly unforgivable crime.

Praise for Island of a Thousand Mirrors:

"The paradisiacal landscapes of Sri Lanka are as astonishing as the barbarity of its revolution, and Munaweera evokes the power of both in a lyrical debut novel worthy of shelving alongside her countryman Michael Ondaatje or her fellow writer of the multigenerational immigrant experience Jhumpa Lahiri." - Publishers Weekly

"The beating heart of Island of a Thousand Mirrors is not so much its human characters but Sri Lanka itself and the vivid, occasionally incandescent, language used to describe this teardrop in the Indian Ocean." - The New York Times Book Review

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250118174
• ISBN13: 9781250118172
• Release Date: April 2017
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Enticing and Impactful MUST Read

I was taking an English course where we were expected to pick a book, from a specified list, for the semester to base all of our assignments on. I chose this book based on the synopsis attached to the product on Amazon. Utilizing this book for the entire semester, I have read it now maybe three times cover to cover, and have practically memorized it from sifting through pages. I can be a particularly picky reader and often I find myself becoming bored, giving up on books after a few chapters if the hook isn’t strong enough. I knew I would have to make it through the book at least once to pass the course, but I did not expect to enjoy it so thoroughly. My first time reading it through, I looked forward to continuing to read it. The story is very enticing and keeps even the most difficult readers attention. After finishing the book, I immediately flipped it back over and started again from the beginning. I would never have discovered this book on my own, and now I have a list of people to lend my book to after the semester. I won’t go into the plot line extensively but I will say if you read this book you absolutely will not regret it.The plot lines follow a Sri Lankan woman greeting her readers from Prison. Rather than telling you what she has done to be in Prison, she would like to show you, to ensure she is understood. You then follow her story from birth to the present time, through all of her trials and tribulations that eventually lead her down her current path. If you experienced any form of S.A (sxual abuse) or find it triggering, I will give you a warning now that there are mentions of it throughout the story and plot lines that follow abuse in general as well as a few other upsetting things. I myself found it very triggering and emotional, but the book was worth it, and its honesty and relatability made it substantially better. It is a very emotional read overall, and especially intriguing if you are interested even remotely in psychology. As a psychology major, I found myself attempting to diagnose every character. This was truly one of the best psychological thriller/ fiction books I have ever read and I am recommending it to everyone I know.