The Lights of Shantinagar by Nidhi Arora - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Lights of Shantinagar by Nidhi Arora! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do have a click around to see other reviews of mine. And don't forget to look at some other people's posts too! 

I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I loved the premise of this book, set as it is in modern India, so I eagerly signed up for the tour. I loved the family dynamics, although it is quite complex for such a short book. First of all there are the Kapoors. Mr and Mrs Kapoor have three sons - Om, who is married to Mahima, and has twin sons, Luv and Kush; Dev, who is married to Sumi, and Vivek, who is studying at a university miles and miles away. Sumi has only just moved into the house. She and Dev have not yet consumated their marriage - it's implied it was an arranged marriage so they are getting to know each other. Still, Dev is very supportive of his wife. She wants to apply for a PhD in quantum physics. Her father is also a physicist and it had always been her dream. She wants to impress him. She has less time for her mother and brother, Gyan. 

The house is cleaned by a woman called Pushpa. Her husband does ironing for a living in the local area. The Kapoors' house backs on to two others - one lived in by Mrs Banshal (I think) and her son, Dhruv. The other one is lived in by Maya and her three daughters.

Maya is a single mother after her husband left six years ago. Her daughters are teenagers/young women. The eldest, Neeti, is getting married. The middle one, Nalini, is very beautiful but really obsessed with studying and working. The youngest, Naina, has a lot put upon her, I think. All the girls have a bit of a time with their mother. She cooks and sells food in the local area. 

In the Kapoors' house things keep going missing and Mahima is going crazy over finding out what happened to them. She is trying to pin it on Pushpa but Sumi isn't sure that's right - but also she doesn't want suspicion to fall on her. She keeps meaning to do her application but isn't exactly sure of herself. There's a lot going on and the wedding is drawing closer. 

I really liked the book and all the characters and the way their lives intertwined in the way that lives of neighbours do. I'd really recommend the book. I'm giving it four out of five. I would definitely read something by the same author! 

I Bet You'd Look Good in a Coffin by Katy Brent - Review

I read the first Kitty Collins book in 2023 and reviewed it here. I liked it, so when I saw the second one in The Works or something I bought it for a few quid. It's been in my to be read basket for a while, and I finally picked it up right at the end of May. 

I'll say what I said before - some of this book is just plain satire, and it's very much a revenge story and maybe is supposed to empower women, and it's also not really a book of substance but it is very compelling reading. I compared her other book to a jam doughnut - not very good for you but it tastes nice occasionally. Do I think it's amazing literature? No. Will I read the next one? Absolutely. 

Kitty is turning thirty and she's celebrating with her boyfriend Charlie. She gets a beautiful diamond necklace from her mum, from whom she's estranged. Her mum lives in the South of France and sends Kitty a decent allowance each month, but they don't speak. Alongside the present is an invitation to her mum, Carmella's, wedding. To a man called Gabriel, who Kitty has never met and doesn't know. She isn't sure whether she will go or not. 

She has given up murdering but has found it hard to quit. She goes to a support group for angry women and gets incredibly angry about the ways in which women have been hurt and abused by men. She also can't stop herself from checking the social media of this incel/red pill bloke called Blaze Bundy. She literally can't stand him and she realises that he is threatening her. She is determined to find out who he is. 

Meanwhile Maisie is pregnant and Tor is seeing her therapist. Kitty is not happy about this so she goes off to meet him and threaten him a bit. She also hears at her support group that a famous TV presenter has groped the teenaged daughter of one of the attendees, so she goes off to meet him and ends up killing him. Because of course she does. She is in the middle of cleaning up when she gets an SOS from Charlie so has to rush home. 

Where there is no emergency, just a surprise party for Kitty's thirtieth! And her mother is there! And there's still a dead body that needs attending to! But then Kitty and Charlie have to head off to France for her mum's wedding and the presenter is merely 'missing'. Kitty has no chance to think about anything. 

A lot happens in this book and it was a bit hard to keep up at times. But I really did want Kitty to succeed and get some power over some terrible men too. I'm giving this four out of five. 

Vianne by Joanne Harris - Review

You may remember that I have read a lot of Joanne Harris' books and really like the Chocolat series. You can see some of my other reviews of her books here. When I heard there was a prequel to the series coming out, I had to order it straight away. And then I started it straight away too, because I was just so excited to read it. 

I read Chocolat way back almost twenty-five years ago when I was at sixth form college, on the recommendation of my French teacher, who was both my teacher of French and a teacher who WAS French, and I loved it, and made my parents both read it immediately. We then read all of Joanne's stuff as it came out. Five Quarters of the Orange remains one of my favourite books of all time. I've read the sequels to Chocolat and reviewed them here, so I would say to check them out.

This is a prequel, so it's Vianne's story before Anouk was born. She, then known as Sylviane Rochas, has been living in New York with her dying mother, Jeanne. Jeanne has died, and Vianne has scattered her ashes in the Hudson river and then used her last dollars to buy a flight to Marseille. It is August 1993. Vianne is pregnant with Anouk. 

She gets a job near La Bonne Mere cathedral, at a bistrot run and owned by a man called Louis. His wife, Margot, died in childbirth with their child, after a lot of miscarriages. Louis hasn't got over it. He has regulars at the bistrot, most of whom are quite as miserable as he is. Vianne gets a room there, and then a job. She has to learn to cook Margot's recipes, from her recipe book cum scrapbook that Louis lends to her. 

Vianne then also meets Guy and Mahmed. They are a couple, and they are about to open a chocolaterie. Guy is passionate about cacao and chocolate, but he is lying to his family in Toulouse, who think he is a pro bono lawyer. Vianne starts to learn about chocolate and how to temper it and make chocolates and how to use it in her magic. 

She ends up leaving Marseille, called by the wind, but things go awry and she ends up back there. She discovers a lot about her own past and a lot about the type of mother that she wants to be. 

Like all the Chocolat books, there's a mix of reality and some magic. Vianne consults her mother's tarot cards often; she can read people's colours and performs little spells often. I love this, it feels so real to the original books. The book is set in 1993 but it also really doesn't feel like that - it is timeless, which I love. I liked the backdrop of Marseille, a place that I've never been. It was all so French, which is one of the reasons I love Joanne's books so much. This is a worthy addition to the Chocolat story. I'm giving it five out of five. 

Five Have Plenty of Fun by Enid Blyton - Review

I read the second in this little boxset of Famous Five books straight after the first one, because I was just in the mood for something easy to read. Again, I really didn't remember this book, if I had ever read it before, so it was new to me. 

I will also say that I've really enjoyed the new series of The Famous Five that has been on the BBC recently. It's got George as a mixed race kid, and Uncle Quentin is less annoying than he is in the books. Anne was probably my favourite in the TV series. There was a new one at Christmas and it really felt like good Christmas viewing, nice and homely. So I would recommend that if you, like me, grew up on the Famous Five and would like some nostalgia. 

In this one, all five are at George's house for part of the holiday (these children as always on holiday!) and Uncle Quentin is going loopy at the thought of children in his house, as usual. He has got two scientist friends coming. They have been working on something to do with alternative energy and it's all very hush hush. One of them is an American, and some people threaten that they will kidnap his daughter, Berta, if he doesn't reveal some of the secret information. So he sends Berta to stay with the five. 

She is American and apparently says 'wunnerful' not 'wonderful' and she has a little poodle called Sally. George can't stand her. They disguise her to put any would be kidnappers off the scent. The five kids and two dogs spend a lot of time swimming etc, enjoying themselves. Quentin has to go to London so Aunt Fanny decides to go with him, of course, leaving the children with Joanna, the cook. Because that's sensible when there are kidnappers around. 

The five realise that someone is on Kirrin Island, possibly spying on them, so they head off there, of course. I thought the end of this book fizzled out a bit and didn't find it as satisfying as the previous ones, so I'm giving it three out of five.