Publication Date: September 15, 2026
A forgotten photograph. A trailblazing ancestor. And a modern woman about to discover that her family’s past holds the key to her future.
When overworked surgeon Jaanvi Chowdhury finds a mysterious photograph and a small stack of letters hidden in her Boston attic, she uncovers the remarkable story of her great-aunt Kalyani Joshi–one of the first Indian women to study medicine in 1920s London.
As Jaanvi pieces together her ancestor’s life, she discovers Kalyani’s experience of colonial oppression, her role in India’s fight for independence, and her unlikely connection with a Scottish missionary’s son, Alexander. Drawn together by their passion for literature, Kalyani and Alexander will risk everything for a free India, putting their loyalty, love, and choices to the test.
Navigating between past and present, Jaanvi confronts her own struggles. Passed over for promotion, she has lost sight of why she became a doctor. But as she learns how fiercely Kalyani fought for each opportunity–and the price she paid–Jaanvi begins to question her own carefully constructed life. Can her great-aunt’s unprecedented story help her reclaim not just her purpose in medicine but her sense of who she truly is?
A sweeping and captivating historical novel that will steal a piece of your heart, The Lost Photograph is perfect for fans of Alka Joshi, Kate Quinn, and Kristin Hannah.
Caught between motherhood, marriage, and a busy medical career, a woman finds inspiration from the past.
Author Archana Maniar delivers a dual timeline alternating between 2019 and 1929 in The Lost Photograph. When Jaanvi Chowdhury finds a photograph of three women posing in front of a famous medical school dated 1928, her curiosity is piqued.
One of the young women happens to be Kalyani Joshi, whose pioneering story unfolds in the past timeline. Both main characters experience significant challenges, especially Kalyani’s difficulty settling back home in India after a taste of freedom in London.
Full of rich historical detail, the early time period reflects the changes happening within colonial India in the early 20th century. As Kalyani’s story unfolds, Jaanvi gains wisdom from her great-aunt’s experiences with sacrifice, love, and loss.
The Lost Photograph links two women and offers inspiration for honoring the past.
Born near Chicago to immigrants from India, Archana Maniar relocated with her parents to Mumbai at age four. After the culture shock abated, she fell in love with her parents’ homeland until chance brought the family to California. During vacations and family occasions, Mumbai was a frequent destination. She attended college at University of California, Los Angeles where she studied political theory and biology before attending medical school at the University of California, Davis. As a professor of medicine and practicing infectious diseases physician, she was a frontline healthcare worker from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and was deeply involved in health system pandemic preparedness. Always a writer in the margins of her day, storytelling became an obsession during her medical career, a way to process her observations about human nature during health, stress, and sickness. With a stubborn case of wanderlust, when she is not working or writing, she is usually traveling somewhere with her family. The Lost Photograph is her second novel.
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