Corvus acquires warm and witty debut about community, family and love in 1970s Mumbai

Corvus Publishing Director Sarah Hodgson has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights in Vedashree Khambete Sharma’s What Will People Think? from Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton. What Will People Think? will be published in hardback and trade paperback in November 2024, with a paperback following in July 2025.

Vedashree Khambete-Sharma works in advertising in Mumbai, and in the course of her 18-year copywriting career, she has won both Indian and international awards for her work, including a Cannes Lion. What Will People Think? is her fourth novel and the first to be published in the UK.

It’s 1976 and in the Vile Parle suburb of Mumbai, bastion of the Maharashtrian middle-class, Ila Bendre’s mother is determined to get her four daughters married off as soon as possible.

Ila has no intention of snaring a proposal from some dull specimen of Marathi manhood so she can pretend to care about cricket for the rest of her life. She wants a career and life of her own, and she’ll do whatever it takes to escape married bliss, no matter what the neighbours might say.

But when Ila’s Bollywood-obsessed younger sister, Latika, takes the matter of marriage into her owns hands, it looks as if the Bendre family’s reputation in this close-knit community will be ruined once and for all…

As we follow the Bendre sisters from dinners to parties to weddings, from Vile Parle to Pune, will love eventually conquer all in this ingeniously witty and charming tale of pride, prejudice and puran polis?

Vedashree Khambete-Sharma says,

‘It has been so much fun bringing alive the quirks and charms of a community, as well as the sights and sounds of 1970s Mumbai. I’m hoping readers find as much joy in reading the book as I did while writing it.’

Sarah Hodgson says,

‘I am so delighted to welcome Vedashree to the Corvus list with this sparklingly warm and witty tale of community, family and (eventually) love (spoiler alert: it does NOT go smoothly). I can’t wait for readers to meet Ila and her sisters, not to mention the gloriously gossipy friends and family who surround them.’