Secrets & Lies - Jaishree Misra

 This book has been with me for a long long time and for some reason i kept it. I had never read Jaishree Misra's books so that was an added reason.

The book took off like a shot - the old principal writing to her fav students to invite them for a reunion before her retirement. The twist - there was a death in the school of one of her students, her grandchild, who was not liked by this bunch of fav students. Doubts arise in the readers minds about how the girls might have bumped their new competition off - in looks, in intelligence, in charm and what not.

Then we dive headlong into the lives of four middle aged women - Bubbles (married to uber rich biz man in London), Anita (unmarried but having a successful career in media), Samaira (married and fat and not attractive to her husband anymore) and Zeba (film star who is a rage and a producer who promotes her). And not to mention a million brands - from shoes, to purses, to food, to furniture, to cars, to what not - we get a Karan Joharesque intro to the lives of the rich. The girls are a bit shocked and worried why their old Principal Lamboo (Mrs Lamb, a British woman who stayed back in Delhi) is asking them to come over.

Between building up their lives and flitting back and forth we discover that Lily (the dead girl) is actually Mrs Lamb's grandchild, born to her son born out of a wedlock, who turns out to be abuser no 1 which gives Lily not just the license to be nasty to everyone but also to top everything and make everyone jealous. Worse, Samaira's brother Haroon falls in love with her and she turns him down. By now we must have got the drift -everyone has an angle to kill her. Sami mostly because her brother kills herself. 

And when she proposes they kill Lily because she made her brother kill himself, they all agree and make plans on how to kill her. Turns out their words are enough and Lily is found dead. Lamboo finally tells them not to worry because Lily did not die because of them and they can all live happily ever after. Which they do.

But what about that intent to kill? That cold blooded planning? They are as good as the killers - even if it was suicide.

But somehow Jaishree glosses over that part and goes on to the relief the girls feel and the remorse at having judged her and the forgiveness and crap. Looked like she was confused a bit there. Anyway, I was wondering why I waded through 400 plus pages to read about four women without much of a character to interest me. 200 - 250 pages were good enough!