Blankenship PR

The Direction of the Wind by Mansi Shah

Expected publication: Feb. 1, 2023 – Lake Union Publishing

Review copy from Blankenship PR, Lake Union and NetGalley

Description:

Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For twenty-two years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering truth: her mother didn’t die. She left.

Nita Shah had everything most women dreamed of in her hometown of Ahmedabad, India—a loving husband, a doting daughter, financial security—but in her heart, she felt like she was living a lie. Fueled by her creative ambitions, Nita moved to Paris, the artists’ capital of the world—even though it meant leaving her family behind. But once in Paris, Nita’s decision and its consequences would haunt her in ways she never expected.

Now that Sophie knows the truth, she’s determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impending arranged marriage. In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother. Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nita, she may just also discover parts of herself she never knew. (publisher)

My take:

The Direction of the Wind is an emotional journey of one young woman’s search for the truth. Having lived her early life believing one thing and then learning something completely different upon the death of her father has sent her life in a tailspin. She is reminded of the proverb her father often quoted:

The direction of the wind cannot be changed, but we can change the direction of our sails.

With themes of depression, anxiety, substance abuse (to list a few) author Mansi Shah kept me turning the pages hopeful for a positive outcome for Sophie. There were a few places where I thought things played out a bit conveniently and times where I wished for more character development. Overall, not an easy read in places but a good story.

About the author:

Mansi Shah lives in Los Angeles. She was born in Toronto, Canada; was raised in the midwestern region of the United States; and studied at universities in Australia, England, and America. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling and exploring different cultures near and far, experimenting on a new culinary creation, or working on her tennis game. She is also the author of The Taste of Ginger. For more information, visit her online at www.mansikshah.com.

Early praise for The Direction of the Wind

“THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND will grab your heart from the first page. Beautifully written, this haunting story about a young woman searching for her mother is heartbreaking and uplifting as it immerses you in both Ahmedabad, India, and Paris, France. Mansi Shah is now a must-read author for me.”

―Lyn Liao Butler, author of Red Thread of Fate

“A poignant and heart-wrenching story that explores the footsteps of the past as well as the ties of family and the bravery needed to break free. Mansi Shah’s latest novel takes the reader on a journey of love, risk, betrayal, and forgiveness.”

―Gian Sardar, author of Take What You Can Carry

“The Direction of the Wind is an unexpected and compelling exploration of the way culture shapes us. This is a gritty, lyrical,heartbreaking, and deeply moving novel. I found myself reading far into the night, unable to leave behind the quest of these two women, a generation apart. Mansi Shah writes with a fresh voice and clear eyes.”

―Barbara O’Neal, USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids

“Mansi Shah’s second novel, The Direction of the Wind, is an absorbing exploration of the price of passion and blazing one’s own path despite the weight of convention, family obligations, even motherhood. Using interlocking mother-daughter perspectives spanning decades and continents, Shah gives an unflinching portrayal of lost innocence, addiction, and misplaced romance. Despite heavy losses, thisis a hopeful novel set in the city of light, where love prevails in unlikely frienfdships and the unbreakable bond of chosen family. Perfect reading

for travelers and journeys of the heart.”

―Yoojin Grace Wuertz, author of Everything Belongs to Us

Congratulations to author Judy Foreman. Her debut novel will publish tomorrow, Feb. 15, 2022.

In her debut novel, CRISPR’d: A Medial Thriller (February 15, 2022; Skyhorse Publishing hardcover; ISBN 978-1-51076-993-9; $26.99; 264 pages), Judy Foreman uses her decades of writing medical columns and science stories for The Boston Globe to take readers on a wild, all-too-plausible-ride into the future.

Dr. Saul Kramer is on the cutting edge of genetic disease research. Revered among clients at his IVF clinic, he harbors a dark secret. In addition to helping infertile couples conceive healthy babies, Dr. Kramer is obsessed, for his own dark reasons, with an alternate mission as well. In certain patients, he uses the gene editing technology CRISPR to tamper with embryos, not to improve the health of the embryos, but to replace a healthy gene with a deadly mutation.

Star reporter Samantha Fuller at one of Boston’s biggest papers begins to suspect what he has done when three infants conceived at his clinic die mysteriously, all at about one year old. She and her molecular biologist husband work secretly in his MIT lab to look for genetic defects in the deceased children. Together, they make a chilling discovery. Thanks to Sammie’s blockbuster stories, which go viral, Dr. Kramer is charged with murder and winds up in court.

In the subsequent dramatic court scenes, his feisty defense lawyer stuns the world with her defense. Set in this uneasy time of genetic engineering with CRISPR technology, Foreman, spins a compelling tale of love, revenge, and murder.

Foreman author photo CREDIT Andy Dolph

Photo credit: Andy Dolph

JUDY FOREMAN is a former Boston Globe health columnist and the author of three works of nonfiction (A Nation in Pain, The Global Pain Crisis, and Exercise Is Medicine). She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College. She spent three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil and has a Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was a Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Fellow in Medical Ethics, also at Harvard Medical School, and a Knight Science Fellow at MIT. She was a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She has won more than 50 journalism awards including a George Foster Peabody Award and a Science in Society award from the National Association of Science Writers. She swims competitively with U.S. Masters and sings with Boston’s Back Bay Chorale. CRISPR’d is her first novel.

Advance praise:

“Judy Foreman’s debut novel, CRISPR’d, is a must-read. A former science writer and health columnist for The Boston Globe, Foreman has written a page-turner—a medical thriller cum cautionary tale—that will not just have you on the edge of your seat but will enlighten you about the power, and potential dangers, of the new gene-editing technology, CRISPR. Foreman has a unique, concise style, like a scalpel. Her novel builds to an exciting, and unexpected, finale that will leave you breathless, and thoughtful.”
— International bestselling author, Robin Cook

“Perhaps you haven’t been ‘CRISPR’d’ yet, but regardless, you should read Judy Foreman’s novel (which is also ‘novel’ as in ‘cutting-edge’ and thought-provoking). Her mastery of non-fiction in previous books shines through and combines with a well-paced cautionary tale. It joins other exciting narratives like ‘Jurassic Park’ 1990 and ‘Regenesis’ 2012 in having a full page of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. An intriguing and very welcome view point.”
—George M. Church, Professor at Harvard Medical School and MIT, and
author of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves

“CRISPR [technology] holds the key to discovering the horrors unleashed by a vengeful IVF physician. A satisfying and well-paced genetics detective story.”
—George Annas, Professor of Health Law, Boston University, and author of Worst Case Bioethics.

“Want to take an incredibly exciting journey to the cutting edge of genetic engineering, the law and crime? This is the book for you. In the expert hands of Judy Foreman, a cast of credible characters in an engaging tale shows how today’s emerging techniques for altering humans might become the stuff of courtroom drama and ethical contention in the very near future.”
—Arthur Caplan, Mitty Professor of Bioethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

“Fans of Jodi Picoult will love this first novel from former Boston Globe science and medicine reporter Judy Foreman. With the care that she brought to her news reporting and scientific books and with an incredible ability to make science understandable for all of us, Foreman weaves a powerful story around new genetic technologies and ancient social and ethical issues: When is killing murder and when is it not? Is vengeance ever justified? I could hardly put down this book and resented every interruption in my reading! For anyone who cares about bioethics, this is a ‘must-read’: deftly crafted, balancing humor and pathos, and combining courtroom drama with the needed twists and turns of a mystery story. May this be the first of many novels from this skilled author.”
—Karen Lebacqz, former member of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and Bioethicist in Residence at Yale University, chair of the Advisory Council of the Center for Christian Bioethics at Loma Linda University, co-author of Sacred Cells: Why Christians Should Support Stem Cell Research, and co-editor of
The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate