I can’t think of a better way to start the year than with a blog tour! Today we’re doing a ‘Books on Tour’ with the fabulous folks at Bookouture and an author who never disappoints: Renita D’Silva. Her latest book is a sweeping novel of love, loss, struggle, betrayal, making the most of the hand that you’re dealt in life and learning that doing good for others is ultimately the quickest path to our own healing.
Blurb:
1939, India. Gently kissing her child, Bindu reaches into her pot of powder and touches her finger to the baby’s forehead. She tries to hide her tears behind her sari as she hands her daughter into a stranger’s arms, wondering if she will ever see her again…
Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Bindu is desperately lonely. Before her wedding, she was a highly sought-after cook and although she is not allowed into the kitchen in her new house, she can still taste chilli on her tongue and remember the feel of ground turmeric on her fingers. She finds solace in writing recipes and creating new spice mixes, hoping to pass them down to her unborn child. But when her jealous husband finds out, he confines Bindu to her room alone. As she goes into labour, Bindu is trapped and desperately afraid for her child’s life. Even a recipe cannot rescue her this time. Will she and her baby find a way to survive?
1990, London. Eve’s most treasured gift from her beloved adopted father was a hand-written Indian recipe book. Grieving his death, she begins to grind and mix the spices penned so carefully in the recipes. Do the crumbling pages hold the key to uncovering the secrets of her past?
Her father never spoke of her birth mother, finding it too painful to talk about his time in India. But now he’s gone, Eve is desperate to understand where she comes from. Will finding her birth family, lost for so long, help Eve to find her place in the world, or will it tear her apart?
My Review:
The story is told in a dual timeline, through the eyes of Bindu and Eve. The reader realizes that there’s obviously a connection between the two, but what that is, will only become apparent much later in the book.
At the start of the book, in a village in Suryanagar, India, Bindu lives a simple life in a hut with her beloved Ajjii, her grandmother. Their lives are not easy, governed by a cruel and callous landlord, the villagers struggle to eke out a living. They depend on each other to get by – bartering and exchanging their goods and services. But as with all those who live in close quarters and in dire circumstances, there is also plenty of gossip, much of which is mean-spirited, and a lot of this is directed at Bindu.
From a young age, Bindu learns all about spices and their uses – both for cooking and for various other things. Her Ajjii is an excellent cook and they are lucky that the landlord often hires her services when he entertains and has parties at his lavish home.
Bindu is bright and is offered an opportunity to go to a school nearby, started by the nuns. They foresee a great future for her, and if there’s one thing that Bindu craves for her future, it’s independence: a life away from the village and the way it ties her down. There are so many rules and too many people watching her all the time, dictating how she should live her life.
She’s surprised to discover that the only person who actually listens to her and understands how stifled she feels is Guru, the landlord’s son! They start to meet in secret, and they share how they both wish their lives could be different.
Suffice to say .. and without giving too much away … their dreams don’t go as planned. The strict system and structures of India at that time ensure that things are a certain way and that no matter how much Bindu might want them to change, there’s little chance of that happening. The devastation and havoc that are wreaked on her life become practically unbearable.
For every few chapters that tell Bindu’s story of her life in India – starting in the mid-1920’s, through to the late 1930’s – we get a chapter about Eve that takes place in London in 1980. Eve’s chapters are completely heartbreaking. In fact, I can just picture the author writing these with tears in her eyes, or even streaming down her face. It would be impossible to create such heartfelt, emotive words, without the deep feeling that would undoubtedly accompany them.
Eve has suffered a devastating loss and can’t seem to find her way back to any semblance of a ‘normal’ life. She had always toyed with the idea of visiting India to discover her roots, passed down to her by her adopted father, who had given her a recipe book of Indian recipes, said to be from her mother. But this now seems an impossible, far-off dream. She needs a catalyst to ground her back in the present and propel her forward. She cannot begin to imagine the future that awaits her.
This is a gorgeous book! The descriptions of rural Indian life are so detailed that the reader is truly transported to a place where you can almost smell the spices, and feel like you’re walking alongside Bindu on her journey.
Thank you Bookouture for continuing to offer us incredible blog tours like this, and thank you to Renita D’Silva for opening up new worlds to your readers. We travel across time and space and beyond our imaginations, thanks to authors like you.
Author Bio:
Renita grew up in a picturesque coastal village in the South of India, the oldest of three children. Her father got her first story books when she was six and she fell in love with the world of stories. Even now she prefers that world, by far, to this.
Social Media links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RenitaDSilvaBooks/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renita_dsilva/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/renitadsilva
Sign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Renita D’Silva here: https://www.bookouture.com/renita-dsilva
Purchase Link:
Amazon: https://geni.us/B0CLL11Z8Qsocial
jansbookbuzz.com 
Leave a comment