Such Big Dreams

Rakhi is a twenty-three-year-old former street child haunted by the grisly aftermath of an incident that led her to lose her best friend eleven years ago. Constantly reminded she doesn't belong, Rakhi lives alone in a Mumbai slum, working as a lowly office assistant at Justice For All, a struggling human rights law office headed by the renowned lawyer who gave her a fresh start.

Fiercely intelligent and in possession of a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue, Rakhi isnobody's fool, evenshe is underestimated by everyone around her.Rakhi's life isn'tmuch, butshe's managing. That is until a fading former Bollywood starlet tries to edge her way back into the spotlight by becoming a celebrity ambassador for Justice For All.Steering the organization into uncharted territories, she demands an internship for her young Canadian family friend, Alex, a Harvard-bound graduate student. Ambitious, persistent, and naive, Alexpersuades Rakhi to show him "the real" India. In exchange, he'll do something to further Rakhi's dreams in a transaction that seems harmless, at first.

As old guilt and new aspirations collide, everything Rakhi once knew to be true is set ablaze. And as the stakes mount, she will come face to face with the difficult choices and moral compromises that people are prepared to make in order to survive, no matter the costs. Reema Patel's transportive debut novel offers a moving, smart, and arrestingly funny look at the cost of ambition and power in reclaiming one's story. (From McClelland & Stewart)

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Reema Patel is a writer and lawyer. She has worked in human rights advocacy and in provincial and municipal government. Such Big Dreams is her first novel. Patel lives in Toronto.