August 1, 2023
With Hurricane Harvey sweeping toward Houston, single mom Jia Shah--already wringing her hands over her son's recent school suspension--reluctantly agrees that they should shelter with her sister Seema and Seema's overly familiar husband, Vipul, in their big house in upper crust Sugar Land. Vipul's brother and sister-in-law soon arrive, and with the brothers' bossy mom there, too, all that's needed is a dead body to truly raise the stakes. Mumbai-born, Texas-based Parekh offers a debut. Prepub Alert.
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November 6, 2023
Parekh’s disappointing debut squanders her intriguing idea to set a closed-circle mystery in Houston, Tex., during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Jia Shah, recently divorced and stuck in a dull data-entry job, is struggling to raise her teenage son, Ishaan, who’s just been suspended from school. Jia’s worries that the suspension might threaten her custody of Ishaan, which her ex-husband is contesting, are displaced by frantic news reports about the hurricane. Fearing her home will be flooded and possibly destroyed, Jia heads to her sister Seema’s house, where Jia and Ishaan try to ride out the storm along with Seema’s family. Adding to Jia’s anxiety is her clandestine entanglement with Seema’s husband, Vipul—the details of which are gradually revealed to the reader. Reports that burglars are targeting abandoned homes near Seema’s escalate tensions further. As the storm worsens, one of Seema’s neighbors joins the family for refuge, and someone in the home is killed. Parekh’s strong concept gets bogged down in mostly milquetoast family drama, and the final solution isn’t worth the slog. There are signs here that Parekh has a bright future, but this misses the mark. Agent: Lori Galvin, Aevitas Creative.
Starred review from November 1, 2023
August 25, 2017. Jia Shah has moved to Houston, Texas, after a recent divorce. An immigrant from India, she is coping with single parenthood, a new job, and an ex-husband who wants custody of their teenage son, Ishan. As Hurricane Harvey heads for Houston, Jia gets an evacuation order and heads to her sister's house in the upscale suburb of Sugarland. Her sister, Seema, enjoys the privileges of wealth while her husband, Vipul, behaves inappropriately with Jia. When Vipul's brother, Raj, and his white wife, Lisa, show up, things get even more complicated. Grandma, the authoritarian matriarch, plays favorites with her sons and their wives, and everyone considers Jia a problem because she is divorced. As the storm becomes more destructive and two people die mysteriously at the house, the situation becomes dire. Who is the murderer? Will they survive the storm? Parekh's impressive debut combines a variation on the locked room mystery with social commentary on the immigrant experience and the role of women in Indian culture.
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December 1, 2023
DEBUT Six months after her divorce, Jia Shah is struggling as a single mother of 12-year-old Ishaan. She feels inadequate, even more so with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on Houston. She's unprepared, so she and Ishaan head to higher ground, her sister Seema's house. Seema and her husband, Vipul, live in a neighborhood where Seema assures her they'll be safe, along with other members of their extended Indian American family, including Vipul's mother, brother, and sister-in-law. But Jia feels uneasy in the deserted neighborhood. As the storm grows in intensity, they're all stuck in the house, along with a neighbor who claims he needs help. When one person dies, and then another is killed, Jia realizes it's up to her to protect herself and her son. Even among family, she doesn't know whom to trust, since someone in the house is a killer. VERDICT While explicating Jia's struggles with her Indian culture and as an immigrant, this locked-room mystery's strength is its setting and the atmospheric tension created by the hurricane.--Lesa Holstine
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