The Virus Between Us

An HIV diagnosis, a doctor's suspicious death, and a woman who won't stop asking questions — a suspenseful story about stigma, secrets, and redemption.

The Virus Between Us is a romantic thriller by Indian author Parvind Kumar. Maya Sharma's life is upended by a single test result — and further upended when the doctor who delivered it is found dead, in what is officially ruled a suicide. Maya doesn't believe it, and when her own medical records vanish, she realizes someone doesn't want her asking questions.

Her investigation pulls in a former lover, a fiancé with his own secrets, a powerful hospital owner, and a string of patients whose stories were quietly buried. Every answer she finds only opens another question, and every person she trusts turns out to be hiding something.

Beneath its mystery, the novel is also a story about stigma — about what an HIV diagnosis does and doesn't mean, and about a woman deciding to understand her own truth before she can help anyone else understand theirs.