Book Review: Reflections on The Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Some books arrive in our lives once. We read them, we close the cover, and we move on. Others, however, return to us—asking to be read again, to be felt again, because they mirror something essential in us. Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s The Secret Daughter is one of those rare novels.

I have just finished my second reading of this remarkable book, and it resonated even more deeply the second time around. It is the story of two families—one in India and one in the United States—whose lives are forever entwined through one girl: Asha, also known as Usha. At its heart, this novel is about love and loss, belonging and identity, and the many ways families are built—not just through blood, but through choice, resilience, and grace.

What struck me most, both times, is how Gowda writes with such honesty about the fractures that adoption can leave, not only in the child, but also in the parents who make the impossible decision to let go, and in the parents who open their hearts to take that child in. It is not a tidy narrative. It is a layered, painful, and ultimately healing one.

Perhaps this is why The Secret Daughter lingers with me—it mirrors themes I explore in my own debut novel. My story, too, begins with the adoption of a girl from an orphanage in India. Like Gowda’s Asha, my character is not just a child being “given a home.” She is the beating heart of two worlds, carrying within her both the ache of loss and the gift of connection.

What The Secret Daughter reminds us is that adoption is never just a transaction or a rescue. It is a journey. It is a weaving together of broken and beautiful threads: a mother’s sacrifice, another mother’s longing, a child’s search for identity, and a family’s evolution.

Reading this book again, I was reminded that stories like Asha’s matter because they demand empathy. They force us to step beyond borders, beyond easy judgments, and into the complicated terrain of love.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift of literature—it not only tells us stories but also prepares us to tell our own.

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