Gold Diggers

By: Sanjena Sathian

Narrated by: Rama Vallury

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Soon to be a Mindy Kaling TV series

A Book of the Month pick by CNN, Bustle, PopSugar, Entertainment Weekly and Vox

One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2021

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

Anyone can be extraordinary. But it comes at a price....

Neil Narayan’s parents moved to America for a better life, and his perfect older sister is now headed to an elite university. Neil is funny and smart, but he is not living up to his parents’ dream. While he tries to want their version of success, mostly, Neil just wants his neighbour across the street, Anita Dayal.

Once a lot like Neil, Anita is truly thriving academically, athletically and socially. Anita has a secret: she and her mother Anjali have been brewing an ancient alchemical potion from stolen gold that harnesses the ambition of the jewellery's original owner. Anita just needs a little boost to get into Harvard. When Neil—who needs a whole lot more—stumbles onto their secret and joins in the plot, events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart.

Ten years later, Neil is an oft-stoned history grad student studying the California gold rush. Anita has given up her high-flying tech career and is working as an event planner, just for now. Anjali, the woman who gave them both so much, is in trouble, and only gold can save her. What choice do Anita and Neil have but to pull off one last heist?

Gold Diggers is a dazzling coming-of-age story that speaks to anyone who ever wondered quite how they belong and who ever dreamed of being the very best they could be.

©2021 Sanjena Sathian (P)2021 Simon & Schuster UK

Critic reviews

"Achingly familiar and marvellously inventive...a dizzyingly original, fiercely funny, deeply wise novel." (Celeste Ng)

"Completely original, utterly absorbing, complex and confident." (Karen Joy Fowler)

"Truly funny, insightful, smart and filled with wonderful characters...unmissable." (Ann Napolitano)

"Blends magic, mythology, alchemy and melodrama into a story about anxiety, assimilation and ambition.... A delightful concoction." (Guardian)

"This smart coming-of-age tale dazzles." (Evening Standard)