Hindsight

by Lakshmi Iyer

Set in the 90s India, Hindsight traces the life of Sandhya, Surya, and Aditya at college until a horrific incident tears them asunder. Fourteen years later, set in current day USA, as India debates assault and the antiquated mindsets, Aditya and Sandhya meet serendipitously and take uncertain steps towards redemption and closure.As Sandhya pursues answers to questions that have haunted her, Aditya exorcises the ghost of Sandhya that has him bound to her all these years.

202 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2024

About the author

Lakshmi G. Iyer is a Tamil American essayist writing about open transracial adoption from the Indian American adoptive parent side. She is a brown mother raising white children, in contact with both birth families since 2010. Her essays press on the money silence, the reverse gaze, and what birth family relationships in open adoption look like at year eighteen rather than year one.

She is the author of the essay collection The Smudged Hyphen: Essays on Family, Identity, and the Art of Belonging (2026); the middle-grade Why Is My Hair Curly? (Westland / Red Panda, 2020), about a young Tamil girl trying to understand where her curls came from, with its companion Why Is My Skin Brown? (Westland / Red Panda, 2026); and the novels Hindsight (2024), A Star Keeps Its Distance (2026), and Pearls on Marble (2026), a romance set in the wedding kitchens and old mill fortunes of Coimbatore. Her essays have appeared in The Hindu, Indian Express, Verve India, HuffPost, and India Abroad, and she has been featured on NPR's The Takeaway and the BBC.

She writes Belonging, Mostly on Substack, a newsletter on adoption, Indian American identity, and family across color lines. On her website lgiyer dot com she also keeps a curated reading list of books about transracial adoption.

When she is not writing, she is watching the sky, losing herself in Korean and Chinese dramas, and being quietly astonished by her kids.

Twitter: @lakshgiri | Instagram: @lakshgiri | Facebook: @lgiyer

Reviews

[Neha Dhanuka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book and would highly recommend it. It’s loosely based around an incident that occurred in the protagonist’s early life but then how she eventually evolved has been handled beautifully. I love the way the point of view of so many characters who were present during the same incident saw it from different perspectives and it affected all their lives in different ways.
This book is for anyone who has faced hardships in their lives, lived , loved and learnt - which is the cycle of growth.
Don’t miss out on this one

[Anila Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hindsight”, Lakshmi Iyer’s 2nd Novel is a gripping tale about an incident during college days of Sandhya, Surya and Adithya and the repercussions in their life due to the incident. The story follows Sandhya through Coimbatore, Banglore and US. The characters are well written and relatable. The narrative style is great and will keep you engaged till the end. I would definitely recommend this book.

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

rounded up to 5 stars. I was immersed in this world and invested in the characters. I was rooting for Sandhya to get the closure for healing she was after. Loved Uma’s blog and personality. Anand and Rashmi were welcoming and delightful. My favorite character was Vikram! What a great guy, solid, dependable, supportive. “Sometimes home is a person” ❤️ yes!

[L. Storms · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books you stay up late finishing…and think about for a long time afterwards.

Don’t we all have a hidden past that exists only in our memories? A thousand variations of what if?

This was a lovely story of heartache and loss, but also of forgiveness and second chances. This one is likely to stay on my mind for quite some time.

[Krithika · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an awesome read. Could not wait to get to the end of it to know how each character's story ends. There are some heavy topics addressed in this book, but the way the author handles it is very good. Definitely recommend this book.