A Librarian and Her Books

Alka Joshi has this knack for creating memorable narratives. This novel, loosely based on the story of the artist, Amrita Sher-Gil, a celebrated female painter of the early 20th century, follows Sona, a nurse in a hospital in Bombay. When Sona meets the famous painter, Mira Novak, the fictionalized character drawn from the inspiration of Sher-Gil, Sona finds herself sent out on her own journey of self discovery that leads her out of India on a trek across some of the most famous and culturally rich cities in Europe.

When we first meet Sona, she’s a smart and skilled nurse, but she’s naive in the ways of the world. She sees injustice but doesn’t know how to find her voice in a way to effectively combat it. When Mira Novak is admitted to the hospital following a miscarriage, Sona is drawn to her fierce independence and worldly experience. She finds Novak compelling and inspiring in ways she can’t quite understand while simultaneously feeling scandalized by someone who is the antithesis of all she’s been taught as being feminine. Despite her prognosis seeming good at first, Mira takes a turn for the worse and dies under strange and fairly mysterious circumstances. Sona, shouldering the blame for the death of her friend, finds herself jobless and in the possession of four of Mira’s paintings that are to be delivered to specific individuals in different locations across Europe. She accompanies a long-time patient, Dr. Stoddard, one of the few honorable people to exist within the walls of the hospital, back to Europe as his personal nurse. Once they have arrived, she embarks upon her own solo journey to deliver her works of art and explore the mysteries of her own past.

As I’ve come to expect from a Joshi novel, the writing is superb. She introduces the setting with deftness, drawing us into her world with precisely crafted imagery. She does try to explore a lot with this novel, especially considering the setting within colonial India. We wade through all these issues of race, class structure, and the gender politics of a highly patriarchal society in which the expertise and knowledge of a woman is so undervalued as to be given no weight at all. Sona and her mother, having been abandoned years prior by Sona’s English father, experience the crushing weight of poverty. Through her friends and colleagues, we see issues of domestic abuse and racial discrimination. Prepare to be infuriated by the way women are treated in this novel, even by other women. I’d get on a plane right now and travel to India just to claw Rebecca’s eyes out if I could (you know, if she wasn’t just a fictional horrible person). The most infuriating aspect of this, however, is the absolute failure of 1930’s medicine as it relates to the female body.

Thankfully, there are good people here that keep us holding onto hope that things will work out. Through her trials, Sona grows in her confidence and power, realizing that perhaps she and Mira aren’t so dissimilar after all. While one was failed by widespread systems of oppression, one just might be able to summon the courage and fortitude to overcome the obstacles she faces, driven by the admiration of her ill-fated friend.

This certainly wasn’t my favorite Joshi novel, because I feel like maybe she tried to throw too much into one standalone novel which made it feel a bit cluttered. I was also a bit disappointed with some aspects of the ending, but I want to avoid spoilers so I won’t go into that in too much detail. But, overall, it’s a very compelling story with strong characters and beautiful writing. The audiobook is expertly narrated by Sneha Mathan who is no stranger to the world of Alka Joshi, as she also did narration on the Jaipur trilogy. You can’t go wrong with any of these audios, as they are absolutely superb. I give this one a 3.5 for story rounded up to a 4 for the quality of the narration.

Published April 15, 2025 by Harlequin Audio. ISBN 9780778368533. Run time 12 hrs, 24 mins. Narrated by Sneha Mathan.