The Daughters of Rosebud: A Novel

In a heart-wrenching debut, author Sonny Buttar delivers a multigenerational family saga at once haunting and hopeful.

Teacher Salma Chaudhry lives a quiet life, avoiding all attachments. But after a call from her estranged father, the protective shell she lives within starts to crack and the trauma she's buried for eighteen years emerges.

Salma and her older sister Asma were inseparable growing up in small-town Rosebud. While Asma was bold and fearless, Salma tried to keep the peace in their fractured family. But amid their mother's decline and their parents’ rigid expectations, Asma makes a choice that tears the family apart. The fallout changes everything—and forces Salma to choose between her sister and her parents.

Salma has spent years trying to forget. But as she recollects her past and considers reconciliation with her father, a young student opens a surprising connection to Asma's past. In finally facing her history, Salma finds the bravery to love and hope again.

The Daughters of Rosebud is a powerful exploration of sisterhood, family loyalty, and the courage it takes to heal.

Sonny Buttar was born in Pakistan and raised in England and the American Midwest. The Daughters of Rosebud is her first novel.

For fans of Fatima Farheen Mirza’s A Place for Us and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, The Daughters of Rosebud is a haunting exploration of what happens when the past refuses to stay buried. When second-grade teacher Salma Chaudhry’s carefully constructed life collides with a ghost from her sister’s past, she must finally confront the family tragedy she’s spent two decades running from. Author Sonny Buttar masterfully weaves a Pakistani family’s unraveling in small-town 1989 America and one woman’s present-day reckoning with guilt and the possibility of healing—into an unforgettable story about the weight of secrets and the courage it takes to set them down.

—Laura Van der Veer, Editor