Belgrave Road

'Exquisite and unputdownable.' RACHEL JOYCE'Tenacious and tender . . . a modern tale of love blossoming in unlikely circumstances.' AUBE RAY LESCURE'Powerful and meditative . . . this will stay with me for years to come.' CRYSTAL HANA KIMThis is a love story of two people working side by side but living worlds apart.Mira's days are filled with duty and light on freedom. In a new country, living with a husband she barely knows - and who she fears she'll never love - Mira is desperate to discover all that her new life in England might offer.And then there's Tahliil. The quiet, beautiful man she sees at work each day. With a depth in his eyes and a face full of questions. The first person in this new world who listens to Mira's hopes for who she yearns to become.But beyond their lunchtime encounters, the pair couldn't lead more different lives: the duties that bind them, the homes they are trying to build threaten to subsume them. As Mira and Tahliil navigate the deep and turbulent waters of their new worlds can they find a way to be together, and will finding each other set them free?

Manish Chauhan hasn't lived in Leicester - the place of his birth - for many years, but it's a place that goes on living inside him. A kind of ocean that keeps offering up its pearls. Belgrave Road is one such story. Set in the community that formed him, this novel is a love letter to his beginnings and to those wanting to make something of their lives the way he hopes to. His short story Pieces was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, and his work has also been shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and the Exeter Short Story Competition. This is his debut novel.