Tag Archives: India

#BookReview ‘A Rising Man’ by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers #crime #historical #India

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I love discovering a new author and series and savouring the delight of books to come. A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee is first in the Wyndham & Banerjee historical crime series set in Calcutta in 1919. Abir MukherjeeA fascinating combination of facts and settings get this book moving quicker than is normal for the first of a series. An English policeman newly arrived in India who asks awkward questions, a tradition-bound corrupt and racist white police force, a dead man found with a note in his mouth threatening the English in India, powerful men who are very enthusiastic about hanging the obvious suspect. All set within the framework of an India in the last decades of Empire when a newly-arrived Ghandi was advocating peaceful non-cooperation rather than violent terrorism.
Former Scotland Yard detective Captain Sam Wyndham arrives in Calcutta fleeing bad memories of tragedy at home and nightmares from trench warfare in the Great War. His tipple is whisky and, when things get really bad, opium. He joins an Indian Police Force organised on racial lines and operating according to the newly introduced Rowlatt Rules, emergency legislation to combat terrorism allowing indefinite detention and imprisonment without trial or judicial review. Wyndham, something of a naif and idealist, persists in following the method of investigation he learned in England which means he soon ruffles feathers.
The dead man is an important white civil servant, that he was found dead outside a brothel in a dodgy part of town means the powers-that-be want a quick arrest. Wyndham, with Sub-Inspector Digby and Sergeant ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee, must find the killer quickly. Wyndham acts on instinct. Digby, the cynical old hand who has been looked over for promotion, is steeped in the casual racism with which Calcutta is riddled. Banerjee is the fresh-faced Indian policeman, university-educated, who always asks the pertinent questions but is painfully shy with women. One of the pleasures of the book is seeing the friendship between Wyndham and Bannerjee develop.
Fresh, entertaining. A very satisfying read. Next is A Necessary Evil.

Here are my reviews of two other books in the Wyndham & Banerjee series:-
A NECESSARY EVIL #2WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
SMOKE AND ASHES #3WYNDHAM&BANERJEE

If you like this, try:-
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #1Arbogast
‘Darktown’ by Thomas Mullen
‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ by Kate Atkinson #6JacksonBrodie

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A RISING MAN by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7SD via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘A Daughter’s Courage’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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A Daughter’s Courage by Renita D’Silva is the story of four girls, in India and England, separated by a hundred years. D’Silva explores how actions have consequences not only instant but generations later, not just for the person concerned but also for people unknown. What happens to Lucy and Gowri in the 1920s impacts on the contemporary lives of Kavya and Sue, one newly-widowed and feeling adrift, the other a failed Bollywood actress. Renita D'SilvaTwo girls at the beginning of the twentieth century. One rich one poor, a continent apart and in circumstances so remote from each other. Both are trapped by their circumstances. Both are mavericks who want more than their parents plan, dreaming of a life different from the one that society expects.
Gowri is the older daughter of a poor tenant farmer in India in 1924. She loves school and plans to be a teacher. But her only brother is ill and when an amazing opportunity presents itself, her parents choose her brother’s life and in exchange Gowri becomes a devadasi, a woman dedicated for life to a local temple and the goddess Yellamma. Her hopes and dreams are nothing.
In England in 1927, Lucy flirts at parties but longs to travel with her best friend. But when Ann falls in love and marries, Lucy’s dreams are abandoned. Lucy, who ‘doesn’t want to tread the path chalked out for her. She doesn’t want to follow the crowd,’ seeks a different kind of adventure. When things go wrong, Lucy marries a stranger and travels to his coffee plantation in India. With her husband James polite but cold, she obsesses over the mistakes she has made. The lives of Lucy and Gowri change forever when they are brought together as a tiger roams the woodlands.
What a fascinating read this is. A trifle slow to get going, and occasionally repetitive, I soon didn’t want to put it down. I was intrigued more by the daily lives of Gowri and Lucy and their dilemmas, than the contemporary women, but what kept me reading was the puzzle of how all four women are connected. As Kavya discovers previously-hidden letters and Lucy finds startling photographs of India, a news story hits the headlines in India. A long-forgotten temple has been discovered by a rampaging elephant, its history and ownership are in doubt.
A beautiful story of heartbreak and family, set in the fragrant and beautiful landscape of India where abuse and exploitation can be hidden in plain view.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘Devotion’ by Hannah Kent
‘Pigeon Pie’ by Nancy Mitford
‘Things Bright and Beautiful’ by Anbara Salam

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6jB via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘The Orphan’s Gift’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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The Orphan’s Gift by Renita D’Silva tells the stories of two women, Alice and Janaki, and moves across four decades between India and England. It is a deceptive tale of love and loss and the mystery of how these two young women are connected at a time when certain love was forbidden. It is an unforgiving world where broken rules may be punished by death, isolation and poverty and where the sanctions may come from those closest to you. Renita D’SilvaWe first meet Alice, aged four, living a privileged life in the house of her parents, surrounded by beauty, warmth, and servants. But there are shadows too. Alice’s parents are distant and she finds love and companionship with her Ayah and Ayah’s son, Raju. Alice’s mother is delicate and spends all her time in a shadowed bedroom, her father is Deputy Commissioner of the British Government in India. Alice’s story starts in 1909 when the first agitations of Indian independence begin.
Janaki’s story begins in 1944 when she is raised by nuns in an Indian orphanage, she was left there as a tiny baby, wrapped in a hand-made green cardigan. Desperate for love, Janaki learns a difficult lesson; that even when love is found, there is no insurance against future pain.
The lives of both women are coloured by their early years and their differing experiences of love. Each story on its own is fascinating, but the fascination comes from how the two women are linked. Occasionally we see a tantalising glimpse of the elderly Alice in India in 1986, as an unknown visitor arrives. Hints are given in the Prologue which of course I read then forgot about as I became enthralled in the world of the book. Only as the book approaches its end does the significance of the Prologue become clear. D’Silva’s theme is how life turns on a sixpence. ‘It takes so little to change a life.’
I particularly enjoyed Janaki’s life at the orphanage, her friendship with Arthy, the pact the two girls make to study as doctors after meeting Mother Theresa and seeing one of their friends die because of the orphanage’s inability to pay for a doctor. Janaki’s story jumps forwards to the 1960s when she is a trailblazing doctor of gynaecology, at a time when female doctors are rare and given many column inches, but when she feels at her loneliest.
Love, and its subsequent loss, is not always fair; it hurts and can be unjust. This is a story of the ripple of consequences, it is also about the strength and truth of unselfish love which transcends prejudice, poverty and status. This book is full of the colours and scents of India but at its heart is a darkness and sadness which jabs an emotional punch. D’Silva is my go-to author for novels about India; she creates a sensory world which never fails to delight but into this setting she weaves stories tackling moral and heart-breaking themes.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘At First Light’ by Vanessa Lafaye
‘The Sapphire Widow’ by Dinah Jeffries
‘Fatal Inheritance’ by Rachel Rhys

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE ORPHAN’S GIFT by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4Fw via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Girl in the Painting’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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When Renita D’Silva writes about India, it comes alive on the page. Her books are dual timeline family mysteries combining a modern day narrator with historical events set in India. With her latest, The Girl in the Painting, D’Silva tackles guilt, forgiveness and sati – when a husband dies, his widow burns with his body on the funeral pyre. It is her emotionally toughest novel yet and handled with sensitivity and balance. Renita D’SilvaThis is the story of three women – Margaret, Archana and Emma – pre-Great War in England, India in 1918 and England 2000. At the beginning, each woman is introduced in short chapters which made me long to dwell a while with each in turn, rather than jumping around. I was puzzled at how these three women, so different from each other, could be connected. Each has a deep sense of duty that, despite a longing to make her own decisions, is an anchor to a sometimes unwelcome, difficult, reality. Yet being impulsive and taking decisions without consideration for others often has far-reaching consequences. The early 20thcentury was a pivotal time in world history and a period of rapid change in the lives of women. Margaret’s family is separated tragically by war, Archana’s by impulsive love; both separations deeply affect these two young girls and reverberate throughout their whole lives. It is Emma in modern-day England who faces a moral and emotional decision of her own, who travels to India with her daughter to cast light on the story.
The emotional connection really kicked in for me when Margaret and Archana meet at the halfway point in the book. From that point, I didn’t want to put the book down. The parallel struggles in Margaret and Archana’s early lives, even though thousands of miles apart, demonstrate the commonality of being human. Tragedy does not strike the undeserving, the old, the unlikeable, the lazy; it strikes everyone without selection. But D’Silva’s story is not about tragedy; it is about what comes next, about taking a deep breath and moving forward.
There is an evocative portrayal of Archana’s village life, the daily grind of poverty juxtaposed with the fertility of flowers and fruits, exotic colours and birds; and the picture of slum children in Bombay who live beside the railway tracks. Neither is romanticised. I also enjoyed Margaret’s time as an artist and her transition to India, using her art as a promotional tool in the fight for Independence. The story covers a lot of history and there were times when I would have liked to immerse myself in a period, but the characters move onwards.
Given the title, The Girl in the Painting, I assumed the front cover design was of the specific painting. In fact there are a number of portraits in the novel and in my imagination none looks like the cover. So I prefer to think it is a portrait of Margaret in the garden at Charleston, welcomed by the Bloomsbury Group, free to allow her art to flourish, free to

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘The Sapphire Widow’ by Dinah Jeffries
‘The Photographer’s Wife’ by Suzanne Joinson
‘Somewhere Inside of Happy’ by Anna McPartlin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Tk via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Beneath an Indian Sky’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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Women’s ambition, women’s capability to lie and manipulate, and women’s ability to love, cherish and recover. Beneath an Indian Sky by Renita D’Silva is the cautionary tale of Sita and Mary and how their lives, from childhood to old age, are entwined in India. It is a symmetrical story, but the permutations of its angles and consequences are not clear until the end. Be patient, relax into the story, because the ending is worth it. Renita D’Silva1925, India. Sita’s parents despair of her acting like a girl so, to encourage more restrained behavior, they arrange for her to become friends with Mary. Mary’s parents encourage individuality, freedom and learning, but Mary secretly envies the rules and ordered life of Sita’s home. And so the two girls become friends. Until in 1926 something happens which splits them apart.
This is a tale of opposites; two little girls who, despite being different, become friends. What happens when they grow up turns into a darker more difficult story about friendship, honesty, betrayal, loss, anguish and regret. Renita D’Silva takes you to another world, India pre- and post-partition, with all its scents, colours, flavours, wealth and poverty. She is a magical writer of the setting into which she lays an emotional story of the twists and turns of women’s treachery and ability to heal.
The girls are born into an India where women must defer to their husbands and sons, where endless wealth and dirt-grovelling poverty exist side-by-side; where women do not always support each other and mistakes are not forgotten. Behind the story is a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moral that applies to both girls. Intertwined with their story is the modern one of Priya, a documentary film-maker, who lives in London and is unable to have a child.
I really enjoyed this book, read quickly over a weekend. Be warned, secrets have a way of being found out.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘White Chrysanthemum’ by Mary Lynn Bracht
‘The Tea Planter’s Wife’ by Dinah Jeffries
‘A Life Between Us’ by Louise Walters

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3jl via @SandraDanby

First Edition: A Passage to India

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EM Forster was born in 1879 and was the author of a number of hugely successful novels. Many were turned into films including Where Angels Fear to Tread [1991], Room with a View [1985] and Howards End [1992]. A Passage to India was his last, and most successful novel, but he was to live on. He died in 1970 at the age of 91. This portrait [below] of Forster by Dora Carrington is dated 1924.

This hardback first edition [above] is one of the rare examples which still has its dust jacket. Published in 1924 by London Edward Arnold & Co, it is now worth £9,750 at rare bookseller Peter Harrington.

The story
Set in the context of India during the British Raj of the 1920s, with the growing Indian independence movement, A Passage to India tells the story of four key characters: Dr Aziz, Cyril Fielding, Mrs Moore and Miss Adela Quested. Aziz is garrulous and naive, Adela something of a prig. During a trip to the Malabar Caves, Adela finds herself alone in a cave with Mr Aziz. She panics and flees. The assumption is made that Aziz assaulted her. The story of his subsequent trial examines the racial tensions and prejudices between the Indians and the British rulers.

The film EM ForsterThe 1984 film, directed by David Lean, featured Alec Guinness, Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Victor Banerjee. It won two Oscars: Dame Peggy Ashcroft [Mrs Moore], Best Actress in a Supporting Role; and Maurice Jarre for Best Music, Original Score.

Watch the official film trailer here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The current UK edition EM ForsterThe current Penguin edition features a detail from ‘English Women visiting caves near Bangalore’ [c. 1880s]. Photograph courtesy of The British Library.

Other editions
My own copy [below] is a Penguin Modern Classics edition, which I have dated 1979. The cover shows Indore in Central India, where a stone bridge spans the river Soor. It is a detail from a drawing by William Simpson in India, Ancient and Modern. EM ForsterAs a classic, A Passage to India has been published in many editions and languages. Here is a selection of some of the covers. The Italian cover is particularly dashing.

‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster [UK: Penguin] Buy at Amazon

If you like old books, check out these:-
‘The Moonstone’ by Wilkie Collins
‘An Ice Cream War’ by William Boyd
‘The Sea The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch

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First Edition: A PASSAGE TO INDIA by EM Forster #oldbooks via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2vK

My Porridge & Cream read: Renita D’Silva

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Today I’m delighted to welcome Indian novelist Renita D’Silva. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

“The book I keep returning to time and again is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I love every character – Boo Radley, Jem, Atticus, and, especially, Scout: her innocence, her wonderful narrative voice through which she reveals more to the reader than she herself understands.
Renita D’Silva

I first read the condensed version as a teen. Being a voracious reader, I could never find enough to read in the village in India where I grew up. There was a small library – a couple of shelves of worn books with falling apart pages, woodlice ridden spines, crumbly to the touch and smelling yellow, of rot and stale lives. Having read each book multiple times, I was desperate for something different when I found this fat book wedged behind the shelves, forgotten and unloved.

I dusted it off, thrilled to have something new to read. I was ecstatic when I discovered that it was a Readers Digest anthology of four condensed books; one of them, To Kill a Mockingbird. I read the first line (they left that in), Scout’s sweet voice saying, ‘When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken…’ – and I was hooked.

I read that version so many times that I knew sections by heart. I had a huge crush on Atticus – typical bookworm that I was, all my major crushes were from books. I graduated, in time, to nursing infatuations on Mr Darcy and others but my love for Atticus remained constant, made all the more steadfast when I finally watched the movie. Years later, I read the full version of the book and it was like discovering a new side to an old and trusted love. I have re-read the book countless times since then and each time, I find something – a word, a sentence – to cherish within its beloved pages.”

Renita D’Silva’s Bio
Renita D’Silva loves stories, both reading and creating them. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet among others and have been nominated for the ‘Pushcart’ prize and the ‘Best of the Net’ anthology. She is the author of Monsoon Memories, The Forgotten Daughter, The Stolen Girl, A Sister’s Promise and A Mother’s Secret.

Renita D’Silva’s links
Facebook
Twitter
Website

Renita D’Silva’s books
Renita D’SilvaWhat if you discovered that everything you knew about yourself was a lie?
When pregnant Jaya loses her mother, then her baby son Arun in a tragic cot death, her world crashes down. Overcome by grief and guilt, she begins to search for answers – to the enigma of her lonely, distant mother, and her mysterious past in India.
Looking through her mother’s belongings, she finds two diaries and old photographs, carrying the smoky aroma of fire. A young boy smiles out at Jaya from every photograph – and in one, a family stand proudly in front of a sprawling mansion. Who is this child? And why did her mother treasure this memento of a regal family lost to the past?
As Jaya starts to read the diaries, their secrets lead her back to India, to the ruin of a once grand house on a hill. There, Kali, a mad old lady, will unlock the story of a devastating lie and a fire that tore a family apart.
Nothing though will prepare Jaya for the house’s final revelation, which will change everything Jaya knew about herself.
Read my review of A Mother’s Secret.

‘A Mother’s Secret’ by Renita D’Silva [UK: Bookouture]

Porridge & Cream

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

Harper Lee

 

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee [UK: Arrow]

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Sue Moorcroft
Jane Cable
Claire Dyer

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Why does @RenitaDSilva love TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee? http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2b5 via @SandraDanby #reading

#BookReview ‘A Mother’s Secret’ by @RenitaDSilva #historical #India

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What a tangled web some families weave. A Mother’s Secret by Renita D’Silva is a fragrant tale of mothers and daughters stretching from England to India. Gaddehalli is a tiny village in Goa but I could smell the spices, hear the wind in the trees, and see the buffalos in the fields as if I was there. Renita D’SilvaThis novel about identity starts with a young girl, Durga, who must stay with her grandmother in Gaddehalli after an accident to her parents. The ruined mansion where she lives, which is avoided by the locals as haunted and full of bad luck, is the centre of this story. The modern-day strand follows Jaya, a young mother in England mourning the loss of her baby son and whose mother Sudha has recently died. Sudha was an emotionally-withdrawn mother, but when Jaya discovers some of her mother’s hidden possessions, including diaries, she pieces together the story of Sudha’s early life. Jaya is looking for the identity of her own father; she finds so much more.
From the beginning, it is a guessing game: how is the story of Durga connected to Kali, Jaya and Sudha? Halfway through, all my ideas of the twist had been proven wrong and I was wondering if the storylines would come together. At times I got the girls confused, but I read the second half of the novel quicker than the first and the twist, when it came, was a big surprise. A clever novel about families and how the important, simple things in life can sometimes be forgotten because of pride, selfishness or shame.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘Yuki Chan in Bronte Country’ by Mick Chapman
‘Crow Blue’ by Adriana Lisboa
‘Love and Eskimo Snow’ by Sarah Holt

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A MOTHER’S SECRET by @RenitaDSilva http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2b0 via @SandraDanby