The stories are everyday tales... However, what makes these a refreshing read is the authors easy language and detailed descriptions. -- Nitya Ramanan, India CurrentsThe stories take place primarily inthe U.S. (the Bay Area, New York)the different charactersdepictingaspects of Indian culture -- Fiza Najeeb, INDIA-WESTVictors protagonists are primarily women often caught betweenDiasporic "here" and "there" conflict between the old world and the new... -- Poornima Apte, Desijournalthe writerseems to have achieved acontinuum; her stories without boundariesmerge into one another to form this larger fabric. -- Shampa Chatterjee, Curled Up with a Good BookAbout the AuthorRaised in Bombay, India and the U.S. Once worked as a free-lance journalist in Bombay. In the last decade, a published writer in the U.S. contributing fiction to four South Asian anthologies and a few online literary journals. A longtime resident of the California Bay Area. Married with children. what is a modern fantasy book When Peacocks Dance: Stories
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Suburban Mona Lisa'sBy PratibhaThis is the first collection of short stories by Vasanthi Victor. Some of the stories have been previously published in anthologies and online magazines. The author calls the collection "a celebration of women's lives--their trials and tribulations and the heartfelt messages of soul and survival." Essentially all of the protagonists of these stories are women born in India, some have migrated to the Unites States and some have stayed in India. The collection is divided into two sections called "Here and There" and "Kerala Stories." Amulya Malladi, author of two recent novels, describes the stories as "infused with tastes and textures of India." Roshani Rustomji-Kerns, in her foreword describes them as "the stitches that keep our lives seamed together." Most of the stories are short and the reader is happy to meander along with the narrator. Vasanthi writes mostly about suburban housewives whose lives are somewhat sheltered. Writers have been reluctant to write about such placid lives. Yet these women with seemingly non-eventful existences have active and vibrant inner lives. Vasanthi stays faithful to her characters and displays their inner world quite skillfully and sympathetically.I think the stories give voice to those women who are living life in an inner isolated sphere, where it is cozy and safe and yet one is restless and wonders about life outside of that sphere. They yearn for something more meaningful, more concrete. Their imaginations take varied and interesting forms.