Peacock in the Snow

By Anubha Mehta

Born to privilege and wed to her high school sweetheart Veer, a free spirited Maya feels trapped in a conventional upper class family with patriarchal expectations in India. Claustrophobic within the dark walls of the mansion she lives in with her spouse, Maya starts living precariously through the threads of her curiosity. This curiosity that leads Maya to unearth a dark family secret, a brutal ancestral murder, which plunges her into a downward spiral of doubt with her shocking discovery of a remarkable resemblance to the murdered woman, Veer’s grandmother Gayatri, and the realization that Veer shares the same behavioural traits as the murderer. With the help of her protective elderly governess Sheila, who was also Gayatri’s housemaid, Maya begins to understand the possibility that Gayatri’s spirit lingers on the edges of their world to take revenge and draw a wedge between her and Veer. But Maya is not defeated, owing to her conviction that her love is stronger than the curses of the spirits.

Sheila, knowing the dark past, persuades Veer to get far away with Maya and their newborn daughter Diya. Maya and her family immigrate to Canada and discover the rough corners, hardship, and the bounty that this new, adopted country offers. Not knowing that the ghosts of their past have followed them in this new land, Maya tries to re-build her new life one step at a time, and she is put to a final test.

Peacock in the Snow is a one-of-a kind romantic thriller about the power of an eternal love, which survives through three generations of heartbreak and speaks to the tireless capacity of the human spirit to love, hope, strive, and succeed despite impossible obstacles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series
• Release date: Sep 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781771335607

Anubha Mehta

Anubha Mehta is a Canadian writer and artist who was born in India. With a doctorate in Political Science, two decades of Canadian public service experience, Anubha has been awarded for her leadership work with diverse communities. Her book, The Politics of Nation Building and Art Patronage (2012), was a culmination of years of her research in late 1990s. Her short stories and poems have been published in several Canadian magazines and journals. She currently lives in Mississauga, Ontario.

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