The walls of my cell are painted an industrial white, like albumen. They must think the color is soothing. Where I come from it connotes absence, death, unrelenting loneliness.’
A young girl grows up carefree in the midst of her loving family in a sprawling old house in Sri Lanka. Her childhood is like any other until a cherished friendship is seen to have monstrous undertones and the consequences spell both the end of her childhood and that of her home. Ostracized by an unforgiving community, the girl and her mother seek safety by immigrating to America. Years later, when she falls in love with Daniel, it appears she has found her happily ever after. Instead, her secrets and scars continue to corrode her life, past and present collide, driving her to commit a single, possibly unforgivable, crime … This is her confession.
What lies between us is a haunting, heartbreaking story about mothers and daughters, about secrets and lies and the things we do to protect those we love. Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in Nigeria. She immigrated to the United States in her early teens and now lives in Oakland, California. Her first novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region, was longlisted for the 2012 'Man Asian Literary Prize' and shortlisted for the 'DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
