BOOKWORM
LOVE IS ALL AROUND YOU
Caste In The Stars by Leylah Attar, Doubleday Canada, $24.
Yep, caste, with an e. “She’s bound by tradition, but maybe they’re destined for love...”
So I know that all will be resolved in the end – fingers crossed! But caste? In a book set in Toronto? Really? Yep. It shows up in what Priya Solanki’s parents do for a living, in how it influences the life choices they deem suitable for her. And even in how she begins to think of herself as someone who brings bad luck to Ethan Knight, whom she has loved since she was in high school.
Her family owns and runs Moksha Funeral Home, a place tied to a caste legacy the world says is long gone, but that her family carried from India and never let go of. When she sees a chance to finally free them – and herself – from its hold, Ethan reappears, offering a way to save it.
And so the fun begins. She tries everything to scare him off. Everything from clanking pipes and flickering lights and inventing a resident ghost, the hilariously named Bhooa Masi.
It’s a finely detailed portrait of an immigrant family, complete with mumma “who has mastered the art of emotional drama” and uses “fastumfass,” an endearing mashup of Gujarati and English when she wants to hurry someone along. And puppa who thinks running the home is their karmic duty. Who teach their daughters that their paths are written in the stars. Don’t reach too high. Don’t think too big. Don’t dream beyond your station.
But Priya knows different. As she tells Ethan, “We’re taking over one samosa at a time. Doctors, CEOs, tech billionaires. Throw a stone and you’ll probably hit one of us.”
Attar even provides a playlist for reading with the right song –a first – one that includes Thunderstruck by AC/DC and Darkhaast by Arijit Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan. And then there’s Sir Puffington the cat, who shows up on the TIFF red carpet to save the day. Very Hum Aapke Hain Koun, for those who remember it!
Revolve by Bal Khabra, Viking, $24.95.
Bal Khabra is on a mission to save hockey, a PR mission.
The players are all so sweet. Oh, they play hard and party hard and have girls swooning over them, but deep down, they are gentle giants who envelop the women they love in warm fuzzies, just like their hoodies they invariably lend them.
Khabra obviously knows her game, but it’s how she takes readers behind the scenes, into the lives of the players that keeps readers hooked. Their dreams, their struggles, the personal ups and downs, and above all, the brotherhood. And the women, fiercely independent, each vulnerable.
Sierra Romanova is an Olympic figure skater who fell and hurt herself badly. Both physically and emotionally. And is now left dealing with everyone’s pity. Dylan Donovan is a hockey player who failed a drug test.
Forced to practise together, they discover aspects of each other – and themselves – they never imagined existed. And they shore each other up. When Sierra says it feels like cheating when she takes pills to calm her nerves before stepping on to the ice again, he tells her to think of it like hockey. “I couldn’t play without five other guys on the ice. Doesn’t mean I am not pulling my weight. Or like skating – we can’t do this without each other. Your medication isn’t doing the work for you. It’s just one piece of the team helping you perform your best.”
It’s bold and sexy, but also gentle and sweet.
And no desis in this book by a desi author, with helva, “ne oldu?”, “seni seviyorum”, the only hints that Dylan is part Turkish.
Honey and Heat by Aurora Palit, Berkley Romance, $25.95.
Cynthia Kumar has everything a beautiful, young ambitious woman could dream of.
Rohit Patel just landed the opportunity of a lifetime – too bad it happens to be the exact same position Cynthia believes is hers as the rightful inheritor of her father’s multimillion-dollar business.
But Cynthia is not popular among the employees or senior management at said business. They find her “too opinionated, too radical, too headstrong. Too female.”
She’s reduced to seeking her father’s approval, grasping at straws.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. And it meant the world to her.
While Rohit is smart, with impeccable people skills, and also a penchant for rom coms from which he cheesily quotes!
“I’m also just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to notice him.”
Or, “I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.”
Seeing as how I am able to identify the films they are from almost immediately tells me I am going to enjoy this book. It doesn’t hurt that Naomi Kelly and Dev Mukherjee from Aurora Palit’s first novel Sunshine and Spice show up.
But Rohit is also keeping a secret from his employer and from Cynthia. Will his experience as an international student whose family back home depends on him be the deal-breaker?
Home page image credit: JOSE CHOMALI on Unsplash.
FALLING APART
You’ve Changed by Ian Williams, Random House, 37. Beckett and Princess think their marriage is basically fine until a couple of friends show up for a visit, their mutual affection and sexual chemistry loudly on display. In one weekend, they upset the tenuous balance between Beckett and Princess, throwing them into parallel mid-life crises.
A daring and clever dissection of a crumbling marriage between two people who are morphing in ways that confound each other.
AGE-OLD SECRETS
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien, Alfred A. Knopf, $36.95. The Book of Records opens inside “The Sea,” a mysterious shape-shifting enclave, a staging post for waves of migrants coming and going, a building made of time where pasts and futures collide. Here, a girl named Lina cares for her ailing father. Having arrived carrying her few possessions by hand, Lina grows up with only three books to read. The book leaps across centuries as if eras were separated only by a door. And leaves one wondering which three books one would choose to take if they were to shape your life.
INSPITE OF IT
I Will Blossom Anyway by Disha Bose, Ballantine Books, $39.99. Durga is named after the goddess, pure of heart and filled with goodness. But the goddess has an alter ego – fearless Kali, made of fire and crackling with energy.
The third of four children born to a middle-class Kolkata family, she is the first to leave the nest. Working for a tech company in Ireland, Durga can be whoever she wants to be. And she wants it all.
But freedom comes at a price, and with heartbreak.
When she comes unmoored, she has to choose between staying on with her newfound freedoms or returning to her comfort zone.
A story about what it means to be caught between two opposing worlds, the pressures and freedoms of millennial life and what it really means to be a modern woman today – anywhere.
Which includes having a plant-watering schedule pinned to the corkboard!
PRICELESS
The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose, Viking, $26.95. Nita Prose, the #1 New York Times bestselling author continues her winning writing streak with The Maid’s Secret.
Molly Gray is now the esteemed head maid and special events manager at the Regency Grand Hotel and two good things are around the corner – a taping of the hit antiquities TV show Hidden Treasures, and her wedding to Juan Manuel.
Among old trinkets she brings in to be appraised, one is revealed to be a rare artifact worth millions. She’s preparing to sell it when, on auction day, it vanishes. Molly and her friends find themselves in the centre of the boldest art heist in recent memory.
The key to the mystery lies in her gran’s diary. My dear Molly, life is a fairy tale.
This is a heist caper that will capture your heart.
TIMELESS GIFTS
A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki, Viking, $39. Three generations of women connected by a tapestry through which they inherit the experiences of those who lived before them.
A family saga sweeping from Partition-era India to modern-day Brooklyn. Ayukta invites her wife Nadya into this lineage, trying to answer a question she’s long avoided: Should they have a child? What would it mean to impart such a burden onto a child? What would it mean to withhold from them these incredible gifts?
GARDEN VARIETY POISONS
A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets by Kate Khavari, Crooked Lane, $25.99. Botanical researcher Saffron Everleigh’s former love interest’s brother Adrian is being investigated for murder. A Russian scientist working for the English government was poisoned and expired in Adrian’s train compartment. When another scientist is found dead, she agrees to go undercover at the government’s laboratory.
A delicious old-fashioned murder mystery, complete with twists and turns, and of course, your garden variety poisons.
SWEET RHYMES
Chicka Chicka I Love You, Little Simon, $13.99. The sweetest little rhymes for the sweet little ones in your life!
THEY WHO LAUGH LAST...
The Last Comics on Earth: A Song of Swords and Stuffies by Max Braillier, Viking, $19.99. How can one not love a book about swords and stuffies?
After one-upping themselves with a triumphant follow-up to their bestselling comic book, the Last Kids on Earth are met with unexpected competition: Skaela has written her own comic and it’s selling like hotcakes! Determined to reclaim their #1 spot, our heroes get to work to create the ultimate threequel.
TEEN REVIEW
By ESHAAL KAMRAN
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, Harper Collins, S415.99. Shatter Me, a fantasy novel written by Tahereh Mafi, is the very first book of the series.
The novel is written from the perspective of a seventeen-year-old girl named Juliette Ferrars whose life is a complete tragedy.
Having the power of a lethal touch, Juliette can kill and destroy anyone or anything. She’s known as a danger to society.
The world Juliette lives in is run by the re-establishment, a group designed to destroy the world.
Having spent 264 days in an asylum, Juliette is released into the care of Warner, whose goal is to use her deadly curse as a military weapon for the re-establishment.
Warner does everything in his power to convince Juliette to join him, but Juliette doesn’t have the heart to use her power for the worse. Adam, a soldier of Warner and the only person that can touch Juliette without consequence, is the only reason Juliette has hope for a better future.
The writing really shows how Juliette sees the world and what goes on in her head.
The novel contains multiple plot twists, leaving the reader shocked. After this story, the next book in the series is definitely on my list!
• Eshaal Kamran is a Brampton Library youth member.