A heartrending family saga following three generations of women connected by a fantastic tapestry through which they inherit the experiences of those that lived before them, sweeping readers from Partition-era India to modern day Brooklyn.

Ayukta is finally sitting down with her wife Nadya to respond to a question she’s long avoided: Should they have a child? The decision is complicated by a secret her family has kept for centuries, one that Ayukta will be the first to share with someone outside their bloodline: the women in her family inherit a mysterious tapestry, through which each generation can experience the memories of those who came before her.

Ayukta invites Nadya into this lineage, carrying her through its past. She relives her grandmother Amla’s life: Once a happy child in Karachi, Amla migrates to Gujarat during Partition, witnessing violence and loss that forever shape her approach to marriage and motherhood. Amla’s daughter, Arni, bears this weight in her own blood in 1974, when gender equity and urban class distinctions divide the community as a bold student movement takes hold. As Ayukta unspools these generations of women—whole decades of love, loss, heartbreak, and revival—she reveals the tapestry’s second gift: the ability for each of these women to dramatically reshape their own worlds. Like all power, both fantastic and societal, this inheritance is more treacherous than it seems.

What would it mean, to impart an impossible burden? To withhold these incredible gifts?

Sweeping, deeply felt, and intergenerational, A Thousand Times Before is a debut as poetic as it is propulsive, as healing as it is heartbreaking, as it examines what it means to carry our past with us and to pass it on.

This book contains scenes that depict the death of a child.

When I was a kid my family recorded interviews with our elders so we would have their memories and stories for posterity. I am so grateful for that foresight and am always amazed by the surprising gems found in family archives. In her scintillating debut novel, A Thousand Times Before, Asha Thanki beautifully captures the wonderful and terrifying impact of the stories we pass down over generations.

Ayukta for years has not known how to share her larger-than-life family history with her wife. She fears sharing it all may scare her away, but then one day she finally relents after her wife asks once again: should we have a child? And so begins the unspooling story of generations of women bound together by a magical tapestry. This tapestry depicts the history of Ayutka’s family from its very beginnings. Each generation, it is passed down to a new female descendant, typically (but not always) mother to daughter. However, the tapestry does not just show the family’s past, it also allows its stewards to influence the future by weaving in new elements…

Moving from Gujarat to New York City and beyond, this is a story full of big ideas and major historical events. But ultimately A Thousand Times Before is a very personal and intimate tale. It movingly explores how our familial past can weigh on our shoulders, but also open us up to life’s fullest possibilities. Let its warmth and insight wrap around you!