A richly imagined, fierce and fascinating new novel by bestselling, award-winning author Shauna Singh Baldwin.  Set in India, it's her first in seven years, and hotly anticipated.

The Selector of Souls begins with a scene that is terrifying, harrowing and yet strangely tender:  we're in the mid-ranges of the Himalayas as a young woman gives birth to her third child, a baby girl, with the help of her mother, Damini.  The birth brings no joy, just a horrible accounting, and the act that follows - the huge sacrifice made by Damini out of love for her daughter - haunts the novel.

In Shauna Singh Baldwin's deeply imagined, enthralling work, two fascinating, strong-willed women deal with the relentless logic forced upon them for survival:  Damini, a Hindu midwife, and Anu, who flees an abusive marriage for the sanctuary of the Catholic church.  When Sister Anu comes to Gurkot village to open a clinic, their paths cross, each certain they are doing what's best for women.  But what do survival, health, education, justice, equality and human rights mean to girls, women and the low caste when a country is marching toward prosperity, growth and nuclearization?  If baby girls and women around them are to survive, Damini and Anu must find creative ways to break their sustaining traditions, and change this community from within.