A Guardian and a Thief introduces us to two families in a near-future version of Kolkata. This is a world ravaged by the effects of the climate crisis, with unbearable heat and extreme food shortages a daily (and worsening) fact of life, with Kolkata clearly very much at the frontline of a global crisis. We first meet Ma, her toddler daughter Mishti and elderly father Dadu. The three are a week away from a move to Michigan in the US, where they will join Ma’s husband where he has a job as a scientist. Early in the novel, however, their house is broken into and (amongst more trivial items) their passports and travel documents are stolen. The remainder of the novel is structured around the next seven days, in which they frantically attempt to ensure that they are able to proceed with their planned journey.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is an epic family saga centring on the lives of Sonia Shah and Sunny Bhatia, two young people from India whose paths intertwine. The story is initiated by a clumsy and half-hearted failed attempt to engineer an arranged marriage between the two by their neighbouring families in India. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who has been studying in Vermont, returns home to India after a deeply troubling relationship in New York with a memorably deranged and controlling older artist named Ilan de Toorjen Foss. She is haunted by this encounter, believing he may have cast a "dark spell" on her (which manifests - seemingly physically - as a ‘ghost hound’ later in the novel). Sunny, a struggling journalist, is working for the Associated Press in New York City, living in Brooklyn with his American girlfriend Ulla. He too returns to his home country, initially to help his friend Satya in his own attempts to secure an arranged marriage.

Western Lane follows Gopi, an 11-year old British-Indian Jain girl living in suburban London in the 1980s, who has recently lost her mother. Alongside her two older sisters, she is left in the care of her Pa, who is clearly also struggling with grief despite a seeming lack of emotional empathy and uncommunicative nature. Both Gopi and her Pa channel their grief into an obsession with squash, training at the titular Western Lane centre where Gopi meets Ged, a white boy with whom she becomes quietly infatuated, and his mother, with whom Pa finds a connection.

The White Tiger is a darkly humorous satire told in the voice of Balram Halwai, brought up in village poverty in what he describes as India's "darkness." The novel is told in the form of a letter from Balram to the then Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. From a lower caste (by name, a sweetmaker) Balram sees his father die in poverty and vows to escape the "Rooster Coop" system that enslaves millions of Indians while others prosper in "the Light."

The Inheritance of Loss is a novel that focuses on the diverse experiences of the inhabitants of a decaying colonial-era mansion in Kalimpong, and their relatives and friends. The primary focus is on two characters: Sai, an orphan living with her grandfather, retired judge Jemubhai Patel; and Biju, the son of the house's cook, who is living in New York illegally.

The God of Small Things is the story of two non-identical twins, Rahel and Estha, in Ayemenem, a village in the Kerala region of India. The non-linear narrative flits between the build up to a tragic incident in their youth, involving a visit from England of their cousin Sophie, and their return to their village as adults in 1993.