About the Book

There lives a community on the highlands of South India, where women have long been the keepers of knowledge, agents of choice, and fierce protectors of their people. Across generations, their lives unfold in vastly different worlds, yet they are united by the quiet rebellions and deep emotional truths that shape womanhood. A queen in the mid-sixteenth century who must save her lineage from encroaching enemies, a naive seventeen-year-old married to a middle-aged farmer who struggles with her powerful attraction to another woman, a lonely housewife in a crumbling marriage haunted by memories of an affectionate lover—what binds these women together? Set in Betta, a fictitious mountain district in South India, Highlands of Yore unfolds through a series of interconnected stories spanning five centuries, offering an intimate portrait of one resilient community told through the voices of its women. With lyrical prose and rooted imagination, this book is a tribute to indigeneity, ecological harmony, and ancestral wisdom—an ode to love: for family, for land, and for legacy.