Book review: The House of Hidden Mothers

Surrogacy in all its thorniness is at the centre of Meera Syal’s third novel. The actor and comedian – whose experience of being South Asian in Britain has informed her previous fiction – takes a diffuse, character-driven approach to her subject, upending stereotypes as she allows the novel’s power dynamics to shift.

Initially, the two women at the centre of the story are worlds apart. Forty-eight-year-old Shyama, the ...