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Back in October 2022, Sheila Yasmin Marikar was on a flight from New York to LA, and feeling good after launching her debut novel, the wellness industry satire The Goddess Effect. “As I was walking through the cabin, I saw Mindy Kaling,” the author tells Bustle. “I felt this has to be a sign, so I’m just gonna give my book to her and see what happens.” So she approached Kaling, who politely paused her in-flight entertainment and accepted the gift.

Less than two years later, Kaling’s imprint, Mindy’s Book Studio, is releasing Marikar’s second book. “I knew I wanted to try to work with Sheila if she ever wrote a sophomore novel and luckily enough, she wrote Friends in Napa,” Kaling tells Bustle via email.

The new novel features a cast of six Cornell University alumni who reunite to celebrate the opening of their friends’ ritzy new Napa Valley vineyard. Against this backdrop, the college friends wonder about what could have been, had things gone differently.

Oh, and there’s a murder.