Set in lower mainland British Columbia, Everything Was Good-bye is a moving modern-day story about a young Indo-Canadian woman named Meena who’s struggling to find her place in the world. Caught between the traditional values of her family and her desire to have the same freedom as other Canadian women, Meena is faced with difficult choices— and her decisions will lead to tragic consequences for everyone involved.

We first meet Meena as a seventeen-year-old girl in her last year of high school. Her family immigrated to Canada when she was still a baby, and soon after that her father was killed in a workplace accident, leaving her mother with the task of raising six daughters on her own. It is an onerous task not only because she must support the family, but she must also ensure that her daughters are all placed in acceptable arranged marriages. As the youngest daughter, Meena is expected to obey her mother and follow in her sisters’ footsteps: “We dressed modestly, hiding our flesh, living somewhere deep inside our skins—chaste and quiet.” But as a headstrong and rebellious teenager, Meena refuses to accept the role that has been assigned to her.

In school, Meena is an outcast—she doesn’t fit in with any of the social groups—until she meets Liam, who seems to be the only one who accepts her for who she is. Her mother forbids her from seeing him for fear of ugly rumors spreading in the close-knit Punjabi community, but Meena recklessly disobeys. Upon graduation, Liam announces that he wants to run away to Toronto and asks Meena to come with him. Torn between her desire to be with him and her obligations to her family, she hesitates, and he disappears.

A few years down the road Meena is a young career woman still living at home with her mother. Facing increased pressure to accept an arranged marriage, she finally agrees to marry Sunny, a successful lawyer and the son of a prominent Indo-Canadian family. Neither Meena nor Sunny are truly happy, but both agree to the marriage in order to please their families. But when Liam reappears in Meena’s life she must confront her true feelings. She is faced with the difficult choice of leading a life that fulfills her family’s expectations or a life that fulfills her own.

Debut novelist Gurjinder Basran has created a world filled with fascinatingly complex characters in a powerful, uniquely Canadian story. Beautifully written and searingly honest, Everything Was Good-bye is a novel that explores the meaning of love, the pain of heartbreak, and the journey toward self-acceptance.