Sisters of a Halved Heart

• Author: Nayantara Roy
• Genre: Literary Fiction
• Publication Date: June 2, 2026
• Publisher: Algonquin Books

Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for sending me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From the author of the highly acclaimed The Magnificent Ruins comes the electric story of two sisters who have to navigate a terrible betrayal from within their family. 

Indian-American Mira Guhathakurta is a poetry editor at a distinguished literary magazine in New York. She reconnects with Jack, an old acquaintance from college, and feels as if she might have found her soulmate. All that remains is for Jack to meet her family: her beloved father and sister Joy, a high-powered lawyer. But when Joy commits an unthinkable act of betrayal, the sisters are impossibly fractured and their father’s heart is broken. As the sisters navigate their tumultuous relationship and Mira starts over, it turns out that Joy isn’t the only one who has been or continues to be dishonest.

In a propulsive story of love and passion and the ultimate pull of family and for fans of The Rachel Incident and The Paper Palace, Sisters of a Halved Heart examines the lengths we will go to in order to make our own narratives of love work out, the lies we tell ourselves, and the ways in which the truth, often right in front of you, can be impossible to see.

I was given the opportunity to read this author’s debut, and it was outstanding. Naturally, I was curious to see how this book was, and could not resist the opportunity. Roy has a talent for writing about complicated family dynamics, and this sounded like it would be more of that. I went into this read with some pretty high standards, and fortunately the read met most of them.

The main plot centers around two Indian-American half-sisters, Mira and Joy. Mira, the older sister, lost her mother at a young age, and Joy is the younger sister with a Caucasian mother. The structure of the story flips back and forth in time, giving readers insight into the sisters’ past relationship and how their sisterhood has changed over time, especially after a betrayal occurs. 

Mira works as a poetry editor, and her love of poetry really shines through in the prose. I loved seeing the world through her eyes, although she doesn’t quite reach the level of likable, especially as the novel goes on. She’s quite a pushover, and struggles to stand up for herself, but the biggest issue I had with her was that she perseverates on things and has a hard time moving on. It made it harder to fully empathize with her, and she wasn’t necessarily the most reliable narrator I’ve encountered. However, I was much more empathetic towards Mira than Joy.

The younger sister, Joy is a high-powered lawyer, and the readers are given insight into how the sisters grew up and their bond in adulthood. This relationship is shattered by an unthinkable betrayal, and I couldn’t help but side with Mira, even though I didn’t love her as a character. I struggled even more with Joy, and found her to be a completely unlikable character. The dynamic between an older and younger sister fits here, with Mira being the more responsible, thoughtful sister, and Joy being the rowdy and irresponsible sister who doesn’t think through any consequences that might arise from her actions.

One thing that I didn’t like is that the story doesn’t take place neatly and consequentially. There are flashbacks to the girls’ years growing up with their father, flashbacks to when Mira was dating Jack, and then present day, although it usually took me a little bit to realize where along the timeline a chapter was taking place. 

The aspect of the story that really grabbed me and kept me reading was the relationship dynamics that are explored throughout the story. I can empathize with how difficult family dynamics are and Roy really shows her talent off in this novel. She effectively captures a relationship between two half-sisters raised together, and how complicated sisterhood can be. The betrayal has an immediate and long-lasting impact on Mira’s bond with her father and sister, and leads to Mira moving to London for a while, until she returns to NYC and is forced to confront the broken relationships she left behind. 

Overall, this was a great read. It focuses heavily on complex family dynamics, the power of forgiveness, and the importance of family. Despite not liking Joy and liking Mira minimally more, I could identify with their difficult relationships, although both sisters made a lot of choices that I had a hard time understanding. In particular, the way Mira and Marlon connect and how she acts towards him really frustrated me. Marlon was a great guy, although I really struggled with how Mira leads him on, knowing that she still isn’t over Jack, even after all this time. Since I come from a family where long-standing grudges can completely cut off certain branches of the family tree, I really had a lot of difficulty understanding why Mira is willing to do what she does, especially at the end of the book. The betrayal was not surprising; I had figured it out really early on, but I was more surprised at how the family was impacted by the betrayal and how Mira was expected to always be the older sister no matter what. But in a nutshell, Roy has become a personal favorite author of mine, and I can easily recommend this one to anyone who likes literary fiction surrounding family dynamics and how they’re impacted by betrayal.

Bottom line: A great book, even with some minor flaws like pacing and unlikable characters, the complex examination of family dynamics and beautiful, poetic prose won me over. 

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