She taught him to love food and how to cook with care and expertise, thus connecting him to his Anglo-Indian roots. It is during this time, that he worked for an Indian lady who was well-known for her home-cooked meals. In their childhood, with their father having died early and their mother having to work long, hard hours, DJ raised Emma and was brother and parent all in one. Unfortunately, like Trisha, he cannot convince her that her life is more important than her sight and that she can still have her art, just experience it differently. Her older brother, Darcy “DJ” Caine, who has ditched his life as a chef at a Parisian Michelin-starred restaurant to be at her side, is desperate to save her life as well. What an anguishing choice to have to make, but one that Trisha is urging her to make quickly in order to have that window of time when it is still possible to excise the tumor. Emma is an artist and her eyesight is everything to her soul-nourishing art.

Threading through this book is the story of Emma Caine who has a tumor wrapped around her optic nerves, where saving her life would make her go blind. Through ten years of dogged hard work, Trisha has developed a robotic surgical machine that allows for surgical precision that surpasses highly skilled surgeons. Like the highly accomplished Shivranjani, Dev’s Trisha is at the pinnacle of her profession as a skull-based neurosurgeon and scientist at Stanford.

I saw Shivranjani’s portrait at a recent elaborate exhibit on Rajasthan at our local art museum, where many of the pieces were from the Maharaja’s palace and personal collection. Trisha Raje’s royal pedigree and the descriptions of their ancestral palace in India instantly made me channel Shivranjani Rajye, who is the daughter of Gaj Singh II, the current Maharaja of Jodhpur, India. This story introduces the Rajes, Indian-Americans who are descended from a royal dynasty in India.

Pride and prejudice and other flavors