#BlogTour! #Review – Beneath an Indian Sky by Renita D’Silva (@RenitaDSilva) @Bookouture

Second and last blog tour for the day is for Renita D’Silva and ‘Beneath an Indian Sky’. Big thanks to Bookouture for the blog tour invite and the ARC of the book.

An unforgettable and heart-wrenching story of love, betrayal and family secrets. In colonial India a young woman finds herself faced with an impossible choice, the consequences of which will echo through the generations…

1928. In British-ruled India, headstrong Sita longs to choose her own path, but her only destiny is a good marriage. After a chance meeting with a Crown Prince leads to a match, her family’s status seems secured and she moves into the palace, where peacocks fill the gardens and tapestries adorn the walls. But royal life is far from simple, and her failure to provide an heir makes her position fragile. Soon Sita is on the brink of losing everything, and the only way to save herself could mean betraying her oldest friend…

2000. When Priya’s marriage ends in heartbreak, she flees home to India and the palace where her grandmother, Sita, once reigned as Queen. But as grandmother and granddaughter grow closer, Priya has questions. Why is Sita so reluctant to accept that her royal status ended with Independence? And who is the mysterious woman who waits patiently at the palace gates day after day? Soon Priya uncovers a secret Sita has kept for years – and which will change the shape of her life forever…

What does TWG think?

I have had one of those weeks where I have just wanted to get away from everything. I’m sure we have all had that feeling at least once in our lifetimes, but, seeing as running away wasn’t exactly feasible, I had to find a book that was able to transport me as far away as possible. Thankfully Renita D’Silva was on hand with ‘Beneath an Indian Sky’! I think India is a pretty good distance away from Scotland, don’t you?

Switching between two different times (the past, and the present), Renita D’Silva has written a story which not only was able to transport me to India, it also had the ability to transport me to a very realistic 1928. Now, I say realistic like I was actually there – I wasn’t born in 1928 but due to the beautiful descriptions and the vivid imagery which D’Silva’s writing brought to life in my mind, it truly felt as though I was standing in the middle of a palace in 1928.

With the storyline also being set in the year 2000 and despite there being a rather large gap between the two years, D’Silva has flawlessly merged both into one overall gritty tale which enabled me to completely lose myself in the authors words and everything the story represented.

Renita D’Silva certainly hasn’t left any stone unturned with this book, that’s for sure. Sita’s life moved me to tears and for the life of me, I cannot put into words why that was. I just know that I have never been moved by one characters story in that way before, and for that reason alone, ‘Beneath an Indian Sky’ will forever have a special place in my heart.

A moving, gritty, realistic and untouchable novel from the outstanding Renita D’Silva.

Buy now!

About the author: 

 

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’, ‘A Mother’s Secret’, ‘A Daughter’s Courage’, ‘Beneath An Indian Sky’.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/RenitaDSilvaBooks

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/RenitaDSilva

Website: http://renitadsilva.com/