In a posh Delhi colony, Shamsher Singh looks on as a man carries around a corpse looking to give his friend a decent burial. His is a privileged life, and yet, the Covid-19 pandemic has ripped open all the insecurities and anxieties of his past. In locked-down Beijing, Mei must come to terms both with her stepfather's demands and her budding relationship with Farid, Shamsher Singh's neighbour. In Bangkok, Changez Khan finds an unexpected kindness, but he has his own ghosts to suffer. And in Jakarta, Nina, Mei's mother, must overcome both her husband's insufferable isolation and her daughter's loneliness. As the body count continues to mount and death steps ever closer, lies are exposed, and deceptions unraveled. But there is always hope.
Set across Asia at the peak of the brutal Delta wave, The Pretenders is a novel about finding love, freedom and human connection even in the bleakest of times. Between the sprawling apartments of Delhi's posh colonies and the loneliness of Bangkok's streets, The Pretenders takes one to the heart of what it means to be human, set in a time when humanity itself was on the edge. Policemen, predators, the privileged and the under-privileged – everyone must confront their demons to discover what it is they are pretending about.
Ambitious, lyrical and reflective, The Pretenders is the pandemic novel we've all been waiting for.