Excerpt from You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Tara reaches them, panting. "Ma, the race wasn't over!"

"That. Woman. Said. One. Lap," their mother answers, still wrestling to contain Sonia.

"One lap means there and back! She could have won!"

The winner has reached the finish line. Belatedly, the distracted crowd notices and begins to cheer.

"It is only a game, Baby," her mother says. "Be quiet."

With a howl of rage, Sonia breaks out of their mother's grasp. She flings the towel on the cement and kicks the umbrella. Then she runs to hide in the coconut trees on the far side of the pool.

"Ekhane fire ai. Ekhunee ai." Her mother commands her return. Immediately.

Sonia doesn't obey. Ma has instructed them to use only English at the club. If she can break the rules, why can't Sonia?

All the British members are still watching them. The Das family is no longer invisible. Kwasi's is the only face that's smiling. He flashes Sonia a thumbs-up.

As if given a cue, the heavy sky suddenly empties barrels of rain over the club. In an instant, sheets of water crash on the tin roofs of the clubhouse and flood across lawns and cement. Swimmers and non-swimmers squeal, take their mothers' outstretched hands, and race through the club doors held open by Kwasi. Tara grabs the umbrella and holds it over herself and their mother as they, too, hurry to shelter.

Tara turns before they enter the clubhouse. "Come soon, Sunny!" she calls toward the coconut grove, and then she's gone.

Hair sparkling, skin gleaming, uniform drenched with rain, Kwasi takes one last look at Sonia, then disappears behind the closed doors.

Under the trees, the downpour is making the coconut fronds applaud. Sonia's sobs slowly dwindle into silence. She strides out into the rain, picks up the discarded white ring still floating at the edge of the pool, and squeezes her body back into it. The air and her skin and her swimming costume are so wet that her leap into the pool doesn't come with the usual shock. A drumbeat of Ghanaian rain keeps time as she paddles and strokes and kicks to the finish line.

Excerpted from You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins. Copyright © 2017 by Mitali Perkins. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.