One would describe seven years as a very long time to pen a single book. For 36-year-old author Shubhangi Swarup, whose debut novel, Latitudes of Longing (HarperCollins India), was in the making during all that time, the quest wasn't as much to create a masterpiece, as it was to tell the story of lands with "geological fault lines," truthfully.

Having made it to the prestigious JCB Prize Shortlist 2018 — the only debutant author on the list — the Mumbai-based writer paints a riveting account of love, loss and most importantly, nature, in her fiction. "It's unconventional," Swarup, a print journalist and filmmaker, says of her book. "I tried to break away from the norm, but I am not quite sure how the readers will receive it," she adds nervously, when we meet at her Bandra residence.