Reese Witherspoon s Book Club Pick A lively sexy and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community friendship and women s lives at all ages--a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls. Every woman has a secret life . . . Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants she s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood preferring a more independent (that is Western) life. When her father s death leaves the family financially strapped Nikki a law school dropout impulsively takes a job teaching a creative writing course at the community center in the beating heart of London s close-knit Punjabi community. Because of a miscommunication the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women she teaches them how to express their untold stories unleashing creativity of the most unexpected--and exciting--kind. As more women are drawn to the class Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community s moral police. But when the widows gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife--a modern woman like Nikki--and some of the class erotica is shared among friends it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.