Set in the stately, forest-clad hills of Malnad in the Western Ghats during the late nineteenth century, Bride in the Hills tells the love stories of young men and women aspiring for a life of freedom, dignity and fulfilment in marriage within a caste-ridden social order. Kuvempu's multi-centred text, with its organic weave of varied narrative strands, much like the Mahabharata, is epic in substance and style. The novel, which is rooted in the regional realities of Malnad, is yet another example of the diversity of modern Indian literature.