Brown Skin White Lies

<p><strong>Brown Skin White Lies</strong> is a propulsive migrant noir that rips the glossy veneer off the Australian dream. Arjun Nair-Kerala-born scholarship poor and one failed lecture away from deportation-scrapes through Melbourne on illegal shifts couch-surf leases and promises that bill by the hour. When a predatory lender threatens his father's pharmacy back home Arjun's last safety net snaps.</p><p></p><p>Enter Rekha Gurung a Nepali nursing dropout with her own paperwork problems and a bakery job that barely pays daylight. Together they bolt north hitching planes buses and half-lit hopes toward orchard work in Kununurra where passports turn to bargaining chips and the sun brands its own barcode on skin.</p><p></p><p>Along the way pawn slips burner phones and bruised alliances pile up. Police inquiries close in; a drug-runner named Trang won't stay ghosted; and every border checkpoint tightens the screws on class caste and the quiet brutality of survival. Yet amid the grit beats a fierce tenderness-friendships forged over instant noodles a love that outruns police radios and a stubborn belief in a soft place to land.</p><p></p><p>Told in punch-cut vignettes laced with black humour and lyrical bite <strong>Brown Skin White Lies</strong> will resonate with readers of <strong>The White Tiger</strong> <strong>Behold the Dreamers</strong> and <strong>On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous</strong>. It is a story about leaving home losing the map and rewriting destiny in a country that prices every breath.</p>