{"product_id":"teatime-for-the-firefly-9780778315476","title":"Teatime for the Firefly","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor fans of Alka Joshis The Henna Artist  comes a compelling love story set against a culture grounded in tradition  about to be changed forever in the onslaught of WWII.  My name is Layla and I was born under an unlucky star. For a young girl growing up in India  this is bad news. But everything began to change for me one spring day in 1943  when three unconnected incidents  like tiny droplets on a lily leaf  tipped and rolled into one. It was that tiny shift in the cosmos  I believe  that tipped us togetherme and Manik Deb.  Layla Roy has defied the fates. Despite being born under an inauspicious horoscope  she is raised to be educated and independent by her eccentric grandfather  Dadamoshai. And  by cleverly manipulating the hand fortune has dealt her  she has even found love with Manik Deba man betrothed to another. All were minor miracles in India that spring of 1943  when young womens lives were predeterminedif not by the stars  then by centuries of family tradition and social order.  Laylas life as a newly married woman takes her away from home and into the jungles of Assam  where the worlds finest tea thrives on plantations run by native labor and British efficiency. Fascinated by this culture of whiskey-soaked expats who seem fazed by neither earthquakes nor man-eating leopards  she struggles to find her place among the prickly English wives with whom she is expected to socialize  and the peculiar servants she now finds under her charge.  But navigating the tea-garden set will hardly be her biggest challenge. Laylas remote home is not safe from the powerful changes sweeping India on the heels of the Second World War. Their colonial society is at a tipping point  and Layla and Manik find themselves caught in a perilous racial divide that threatens their very lives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647291252789,"sku":"ByrdShop_0778315479","price":26.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780778315476.jpg?v=1781691792","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/teatime-for-the-firefly-9780778315476","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}