Book Title: SCENT OF A GARDEN
Character Name: The Nanis of Napa (during one of their outings)
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Ming Na: We’re grandmothers, how much time do you have? Because I have stories. But it’ll cost you a glass, no a bottle of wine.
Mimi: I have a lovely family. My childhood, well, I got married young and came to America as a bride. It was difficult, but worth it.
Leela: That was over sixty years ago now. We didn’t know the language. I had to set up a house for my husband then our son. It was a lot of work.
Mimi: That’s why now it’s our time to drink wine, sunbathe topless.
Leela: Shhh….she’s a little too free with her words.
What was your greatest talent?
Bonnie: I can beat Greg Norman on the golf course all day any day.
Leela: I can grow anything plants, flowers, herbs, vegetables.
Ming Na: Sneaking in snacks wherever it’s not allowed.
Where do you live?
All: We’re the Nani’s of Napa!
Do you have any enemies?
Bonnie: We’re loved by all and feared by many.
Leela: The colonizers will always be my enemy.
Mimi: You’re eighty-years old, don’t you think you should get over it by now?
Leela: They stole and destroyed our country.
Mimi: What’s that song or movie, the cartoon one? Let it Go?
Bonnie: America is your country so in a way you’re also a colonizer.
Leela: How dare you? I…
Mimi: We should move on to the next question. I worry about Leela’s blood pressure.
What do you do for a living?
Ming Na: I was an Ob-GYN, now we help people in our community that need extra support.
Bonnie: Retired pro-golfer
Mimi: My family runs a hotel conglomerate; I raised my grandchildren.
Leela: I built a garden that fed our family and now feeds the guests at the hotel that was founded by my husband.
Greatest disappointment?
Yulie: We don’t believe in regrets. We have had hard times and now live in good times. Every single thing we’ve endured has made us who we are.
Greatest source of joy?
Mimi: These women and my family. My granddaughter is poised to take over for my son. Leela’s granddaughter, who is like my other granddaughter, is struggling right now but we are going to help her.
Leela: We have a plan to help her get her sense of smell back.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Ming Na: Drink
Bonnie: Canoeing and eBikes and then drink.
Yulie: We do feel bad for our guides when we go on our adventures because we don’t pay attention to instructions.
Leela: They’re young and we know better.
Ming Na: Until someone breaks a hip.
Bonnie: And now I’m back to myself and fit as a fiddle.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Leela: My granddaughter. Her loss of smell means she may not be able to continue her career, one I helped her shape. She has a talent that cannot go wasted.
Mimi: I have faith that Asha will recover or find something new.
Leela: Nothing else is an option. She was meant to be a master perfumer and she will become one as long as I have something to say about it.
SCENT OF A GARDEN by Namrata Patel
A Novel
A perfumer in Paris is forced to return to her California roots in an exhilarating novel about family, self-discovery, and taking risks by the author of The Candid Life of Meena Dave.
The daughter of proud Napa Valley hoteliers, Asha “Poppy” Patel chose a different line as a Paris perfumer, gifted with a nose for fragrances and business. Until her heightened sense of smell disappears. Her career in jeopardy, her world now muted, Poppy returns home. Maybe tending to her grandmother’s massive aromatic garden, where Poppy’s gift first flowered, will bring restorative hope.
But when she arrives, Poppy discovers that the land upon which the beautiful garden once thrived has been uprooted and destroyed. She realizes that the years she spent away from her home have loosened so many ties with the past. Torn between a mother who lives vicariously through her and a father who wants her to embrace her family’s legacy, Poppy is determined to chart her own path of rediscovery.
Poppy must juggle family drama, childhood friendships, and a former love to forge a future of her own choosing and, in time, heal an unscented life.
Thriller Domestic | Women’s Fiction [Lake Union Publishing, On Sale: June 13, 2023, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781542039086 / ]
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About Namrata Patel
Namrata Patel is an Indian American writer who resides in Boston. Her writing examines diaspora and dual-cultural identity among Indian Americans and explores this dynamic while also touching on the families we’re born with and those we choose. Namrata has lived in India, New Jersey, Spokane, London, and New York City and has been writing most of her adult life.
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