Despite its title, this book is not just for widows

BALLI Kaur Jaswal is one of Singapore's best working novelists - if not the best. In her first two novels, Inheritance (2013) and Sugarbread (2015), she explores profound themes of identity, belonging and social culture through compelling stories and characters situated in the Singapore Sikh community.

Her third novel, deliciously titled Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows, mines similar themes even though it is set not in Singapore but the suburban district of Southall in London, where there is a sizable Punjabi community. Also unlike her first two novels, this one is fun and mischievous, with sprinklings of erotica - even if it's underpinned by still serious concerns about the circumscribed lives of women.

The story centres on Nikki, a willful first-generation British Sikh who, like other first generation children of immigrants, struggle to find a middle ground between the two cultures she grew up in. To her mother, Nikki is a disappointment - she dropped out of law school, smokes and lives on her own. She has lovers, balks at the idea of an arranged marriage, and hasn't really figured out what to do with her life.