Tina Biswas joins the British Asian bandwagon of novelists that have stormed across the Atlantic in recent years. While some have gone as far as to compare her to another ingénue, Monica Ali of Brick Lane fame, her sensibilities are far from the clichéd, heart wrenching tragedies of new immigrants.

Yes, we have the standard fobbish relative from India, a confident pampered princess and perverted "Uncles" galore, but the treatment Biswas gives her group of misfits is equatable to a Desi version of American Beauty at best: cold, emasculating women who see nothing beyond their looks or success; ignored men who fail in all their relationships and the unfortunate few who are caught in between.

At worst, the scenarios become convoluted with secondary characters becoming introduced for no apparent reason. Rather than a sole protagonist or villain, characters flutter about in lovely prose, struggling to find solid ground in multiple plots and unusual character dynamics.

Stunner Darshini Majumdar is gorgeous and beloved as the only child of her very successful and posh immigrant parents. Not only is she a looker, she possesses the kind of classic old school beauty that makes men fall to their knees and women writhe in jealousy and awe. Basically, she's what dreams and harlequin romances are made of. Surprisingly, she leads a relatively chaste and carefree life: sheltered, but far from naïve, simply doing what she wants, when she wants.

Tuhina, a fabulously successful and respected investment banker has centered her world around her doting daughter, losing track of her "gutless" husband Prakash in the meantime. Prakash, neglected husband and father to the "two-headed tigresses" yearns for companionship and approval, while inwardly desiring a return to a fictional era where men earned more than their wives and didn't have to make dinner.

On the other side of the world, Calcutta to be exact, Mousami Sharma struggles to finish her required minimal education and appease her misogynist father, while secretly hankering after the taboo western lifestyle she so admires. The anti-Darshini, Mousami has not been so lucky as to inherit the poise and genetics as her foreign cousin. Plump, oily and painfully shy, not a day passes where she isn't heckled at by her peers, dismissed by her father or overfed by her mother. Her too western interests and talents are immediately stunted by her overbearing father, who refuses to rear a daughter who is too smart for her own good. No educated Indian husband would want a wife who would surpass his skills, after all.

Nothing exemplifies the contrast of hot, traditional, steamy climate of Calcutta and the cold, concrete jungle of London but an interracial romance. Our beautiful antagonist (?) embarks on a torrid romance with a lovely Irish transplant named Seph. Seph (Joseph) is employed with the same company as her mom, and wastes no time to make Darshini his. This relationship is very intricately and vividly described, a sort of modern day love affair along the same lines of Gone with the Wind. With cousin Mousami and Prakash as servants, of course. Unbelievably, Darshini's apparently open minded parents don't seem to mind that their only daughter is embroiled in a romance with a man ten years her senior, or that they very obviously are engaged in a physical relationship. The depiction is unrealistic, as biased as I may be, most first generation South Asian immigrants would raise at least an eyebrow if their daughter dated...period.

Biswas is gifted. Her descriptions rival the best dramatic soap opera situations without being annoying or overly cheesy. However, on the whole, the personalities and motivations of the primary characters are at times, underdeveloped and unfocused. If the plot truly does revolves around the notion of a mother-daughter relationship so tight they are renamed after a frightening creature, let it truly be about that. Even if it is from a single person's perspective. Secondary characters are accommodated and well graphed, but steal the limelight from the people we really should care about. There are too many distracting scenarios and plot holes to completely emphasize with the multiple characters. As a screenplay, Dancing With The Two-Headed Tigress would fare well, since all the attempts at subtlety and emotion would be better served and, possibly, clarified. As a reader, however, I was left feeling weary and confused.