A Walk Across the Sun

Ahalya Ghai and her younger sister Sita are as close as sisters can be. But their loving and secure childhood ends abruptly one day when a tsunami rips through their village on India's Coromandel coast. Their home is swept away, and Ahalya and Sita are the sole survivors of their family. Destitute, their only hope is to find refuge at a convent in Chennai, many miles away. A driver agrees to take them. But the moment they get into that car their fate is sealed. The two sisters, confused, alone, totally reliant on each other, are sold. Worse, they are separated.

On the other side of the world, Washington lawyer Thomas Clarke is struggling to cope after the death of his baby daughter and the collapse of his marriage to Priya. He takes a sabbatical from his high-pressure job and accepts a position with the Bombay branch of an international anti-trafficking group.

Thomas is now on a path that not only involves saving himself and his marriage, but the lives of two sisters who cannot bear to be apart.

*Forward lean; yellowed pages*