Nasreen Bastawala is an Indo-Canadian lesbian and burnt-out psychologist who meets and becomes enmeshed in the lives of Shaffiq and Salma Paperwala, new immigrants from Mumbai. Both Shaffiq and Salma develop confusing attractions to Nasreen. For Shaffiq this causes him to bring home and hide things he “finds” in her office. Salma’s crush on Nasreen harkens back memories and regrets about a lesbian affair that ended badly years ago.

Nasreen has troubles of her own. She recently broke up with her cheating girlfriend and is dealing with her father, who has become demanding and clingy ever since the death of her mother a couple of years before.

Without knowing what is happening, Nasreen becomes the centre of Shaffiq and Salma’s lives. Each keeps a secret about Nasreen, and in so doing risks their marriage, while Nasreen struggles to come to terms with her mother’s death and her recent break-up. An impulsive kiss between Salma and Nasreen sets off a surprising course of events.

Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based author and social worker. Her novel, Stealing Nasreen (Inanna, 2007) has received critical acclaim from the Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, and NOW Magazine. She has had her poetry, reviews, short stories and creative non-fiction published in NOW, Trikone, Herizons, Siren, Aurat Durbar and Sightlines 7 Anthology. She has also co-written a manual for therapists and was part of the video collective that produced the documentary, “Rewriting the Script”. She is now working on her second novel.