Book Synopsis:
Can she find home in a foreign land?
Punjab, India. It’s 1942 and Meena is still a girl when her parents tell her she is to be married, in five days, to a total stranger. What’s more, he lives in Kenya. A different country, a different continent, thousands of miles away from everything she knows. She doesn’t want to marry, but with four brothers and sisters, Meena knows she will be a burden to her parents if she stays. And it isn’t her decision to make.
Nairobi, Kenya. Meena’s new home is beyond anything she could have imagined. Nairobi is beautiful, but tensions under the colonial British rule run high. She is told she is lucky because her husband Amar is young and handsome, but all is not as it seems within her marriage… Tucked away from the outside world, Meena spends her time by the mango tree dreaming of going home… until she realises the friendships that she forges here are all she can hold onto.
Going from girl to woman in a strange land, can Meena find a way to finally make her life her own?
For fans of Dinah Jeffries, Janet Macleod Trotter and Jenny Ashcroft, Lilac Skies is a heart-wrenching, immersive debut guaranteed to sweep you away.
My Review:
Lilac Skies is a beautiful, absorbing and heart wrenching read that has stayed with me.
Firstly I absolutely loved Meera and enjoyed following her throughout the book. She’s an incredibly strong, resilient women who faces situations that I think most people would crumble in with amazing strength and manages to keep going. I was firmly on her side from the start and had to keep reading to find out what happens next.
There are a lot of difficult subjects discussed in the book which might affect some people but I thought the author handled them really sensitively. These events help shape Meera and the woman she becomes though and I thought the way it was included in the story was very well done. It helped me understand her more and made her feel more real as a character though these things also made me feel incredibly angry about everything she has to endure.
The settings of each country Meera visits was beautifully described and seemed so vivid at times that I felt I could perfectly picture them in my mind. I liked how the author draws the reader into each setting so they felt like part of the story and how each country was so different to each other. It was really interesting following Meera as she learnt more about each one.
Overall I really enjoyed this story and would recommend it to fans of the genre. The book was well paced and I liked how there were moments of intense sadness but also moments of joy too. I’m hoping there will be another book about Meera as I’d love to discover what happens next
Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Orion Dash for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Shivani Bansal has a First Class degree in International Relations and Politics, which has yet to be put to use! She works full time in digital marketing in the charity sector, and also runs a small baking business from home called Sweet Beginnings Bakes. She loves writing story ideas in her Pusheen notebook in her spare time.
Over The Rainbow Blog 