China Room by Sunjeev Sahota, Penguin

Set in 1929 and 1999 Punjab, this lilting story envelops us like a trance. At 15, Mehar is married with two girl strangers, Gurleen and Harbans, to three brothers, in a single ceremony. She lives with her sisters-in-law in the “china room” of this remote country farm – named for the willow pattern of plates stored there; the dowry of matriarch Mai. Veiled, they do not know which brother they have married; Mehar trying to detect by spicing their husbands’ food differently to see if she can smell an odour on her husband’s breath. Mai taps them on the shoulder when it is their turn to go to a windowless room, where the men have sex with their wives. Mai cruelly jests, “Are you sure I send the same one [son]?” In a shocking twist, Mehar allows this to happen and shall be barbarically punished. Seventy years later, her great-grandson – battling heroin and alcohol addiction in London – goes to stay in the empty ramshackle farm, where he goes cold turkey. Family ghosts abound.