Author: Sonali Dev
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Publication
Date: December
26, 2017
Blurb:
Kimaya is a miracle baby; the first child to
survive following her parent’s seven miscarriages. At the age of ten she develops a rare form of
aplastic anemia that severely compromises her immune system and requires her complete
isolation from the world around her.
Rahul was thirteen when his father died
protecting Kimaya’s father, a popular politician. Though he is, at first, filled with hate and
rage towards Kimaya’s family he accepts their gift of financial assistance for
his family, with the caveat that he work to pay them back. Then, one afternoon, while washing bird poop
off windows Rahul comes across Kimaya, trapped and lonely behind the glass
windows of her bedroom.
As the years go by Rahul and Kimi develop a
unique and deep friendship. He becomes her eyes to the outside world and she
becomes his refuge in a cruel world. With Kimi’s encouragement, Rahul makes his
way into the extremely selective Indian Civil Services Police Cadre. When Kimi
is given a new lease on life via a life-saving procedure, she and Rahul must
navigate their undeniable attraction, their lost friendship, complicated family
dynamics, and a web of lies that cut too close to home to learn the real
meaning of courage, loss and love.
Review:
Sonali Dev, author of The Bollywood Bride (review here), is an absolute wonder of
an author. The Bollywood Bride is the first in a series that I wouldn’t really
call a ‘standalone series’. You’re going
to need to read The Bollywood Bride and
The Bollywood Affair and A Change of Heart. I’ll admit that I only read The Bollywood Bride, as of yet
(ah-mazing) and I was able to get the gist of A Distant Heart’s background stories, but it would have been so
much easier had I snapped up those other books first.
Have you ever wanted to read a book and
immerse yourself in another culture?
Honestly, prior to this book that was never my goal with romance
novels. I don’t want to think.
I want a distraction from my life when I read romance. I guess the reality is that I’d never found
an author who could bring me so deeply into another culture, another country,
another world quite like Sonali Dev
does with the Indian culture. Her books
are an experience unlike any other.
Sonali Dev’s writing is like poetry (but
better because I honestly don’t enjoy poetry that much, or maybe I just never
found the right poetry). She doesn’t
just write a book, she creates an experience; a tour of India and of its
people. This book is quite the journey
even without the geography lesson though.
You become Kimaya. You become
Rahul. You understand their pain and
their suffering as if it was your own.
Your heart hurts even as it
soars with love and understanding for their circumstances.
The passion within these pages isn’t like
your typical romance novel. The love
between Kimaya and Rahul is a different sort of love than we’re used to reading
between the pages. It’s innocent and wholesome,
a relationship formed between two lonely children who were desperate for
friendship and understanding. In the
same breath, however, you can see the co-dependent, borderline unhealthy, bond
that the two of them have for one another.
You war with yourself over what is right and what is necessary for these
two to have their happy-ending.
You won’t regret picking up these
books. They’re heart-warming, moving
novels that challenge what you think a romance novel is and can be. Your life will be forever changed by what you
read between the covers of these books. In case you weren’t pulled in by this
review alone here’s a few more words about this book: gangsters, heart
transplants, & murder. Hooked?
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