Sunday Books & Culture For June 9

This week’s reviews include an Irish romance in Jenn McKinlay’s “Love at First Book,” and a resilient and talented Indian woman in Alka Joshi’s “The Henna Artist.”

Sunday Books & Reviews is edited each week by Vanessa Sekinger. Interested in writing reviews? Contact Vanessa.

LOVE AT FIRST BOOK

By Jenn McKinlay

Published by Berkley (May 14, 2024)
Paperback $16.19
Audiobook $15.75

Reviewed by Drew Gallagher

I do not like romance novels.

So, it was a giant leap of faith to read Jenn McKinlay’s Love At First Book, but it featured a bookstore and it was set in rural Ireland so it checked a number of boxes before I even cracked the cover.

I may have to change my opinion on romance novels.

Sure there is the requisite strapping male love interest, Kieran Murphy, whose forearms are well-muscled and ripple at the slightest breeze (we are told this more than once), and a lot of the book is extended foreplay between Murphy and Emily Allen, the plain American librarian who has fled to the green hills of Ireland to escape an overbearing mother, but there is an underlying and intriguing story that surpasses the inevitable romance. Plus, there is a bookstore.

Emily responds to a want-ad posted by her favorite author, the writer of a series of young adult novels featuring a boy wizard of sorts. The beloved author wants an assistant to come live in her tiny postcard village for a year to help her with assorted chores to include breaking her decade-long writers block and helping at the town’s bookstore which is owned and operated by her son, Kieran Murphy. Emily is shocked when she learns the infuriating and handsome bookstore owner is the son of the famous author, but most readers will not be.

Though astute readers (or ones who are not sleeping) figure out in the first few pages that Em and Murph will end up in some sort of congress, the plot with the beloved author and how she is struggling to finish her series is a nice diversion from the heat rushing to cheeks and extremities whenever Em and Murph see each other.

McKinlay makes the author lovable, and readers do hope that she’ll finish her series of popular books despite a number of obstacles that may be predictable but still pull at heartstrings. (I have found that as I grow older I am more prone to teary responses to beloved movies and, apparently, to romance novels set in my ancestral homeland.)

And the tears weren’t because of the prose capturing the first kiss of our protagonists although I did throw up a little bit in my mouth.

Kier responded by dropping one hand from my face to scoop me even tighter. The cold night didn’t stand a chance with the heat we were generating. He tilted his head, fitting his lips to mine and plundering my mouth with his tongue as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste of me. I felt dizzy and delighted and was drowning in the scent of him. I touched him wherever I could reach and his response was a low growl and a deepening of the kiss as his hands moved over my person, hampered by my puffy coat but still leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

McKinlay does show restraint in only writing about them having sex once (spoiler alert) and it’s not gratuitous but does underscore that sex is really difficult to write. Fortunately, she writes the other plotlines so well that Love At First Book can rise above the restraints of the romance genre even as our two lovebirds struggle to break free from the restraints of a puffy coat.

Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 137-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance and is also a founding member of Dads for Puppies.

THE HENNA ARTIST

By Alka Joshi

Published by Mira (April 6, 2021)
Paperback $10.70
Audiobook $20.06

Reviewed by Tammy Byram

It’s 1955, and India has only recently won her independence from the British. Lakshmi Shastri muses on her life as a fierce woman on her own in India’s male-dominated society. “I wanted more, always, for what my hands could accomplish, what my wits could achieve — more than my parents had thought possible,” she admits. She has worked hard and come so far, carrying the burden of decisions that affected her entire family.

Forced to wed at 15, she discovers that her husband is cruel and abusive. Her only saving grace is her beloved saas, her mother-in-law, who is wise in the ways of herbs and healing. Lakshmi, fearing she will die if she stays, takes the knowledge and skill learned from her saas and flees her horrid marriage at 17. It is not a decision taken lightly, as her parents will suffer humiliation and ostracism in their village, and she will likely be dead to them.

Now, in the “Pink City” of Jaipur, Lakshmi has built a thriving herb and henna business; she is sought after among the finest ladies for her exquisite henna applications. With Malik, a young street urchin as her loyal errand boy, Lakshmi is finally seeing some pay-off for years of hard work, patience, and a resigned understanding of the unspoken societal conventions.

Lakshmi’s life is turned upside down, however, at the appearance of her estranged husband, bringing with him Radha, the younger sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Radha is innocent in the ways of city life and Lakshmi is torn – while she loves her sister and wants to do right by her, she is also worried that Radha’s inexperience with society will inadvertently ruin years of hard work. As Lakshmi and Radha learn to share a life, society will once again dictate the choices available to the sisters.

The Henna Artist, by Alka Joshi, is a novel of love and resilience, of guilt and redemption, of choices and expectations, of life’s unexpected twists and turns. Joshi surrounds Lakshmi and Radha with a plethora of interesting characters, and – whether we like them or not – the author helps us understand them and their behaviors within the overall setting.

This novel ticked a lot of boxes for me: flawed, but strong characters that felt real, mid-century time frame in an exotic (to me) location, and a complicated, but overall optimistic, storyline that sucked me in. I found myself eagerly checking the unfamiliar Hindu words with the glossary in the back, Googling interesting-sounding foods, and wanting to learn more about the ancient art of henna. I didn’t want it to end, but I have discovered that Joshi has written two other novels, in which the reader follows Malik and Radha as they come into their own. All in all, Alka Joshi’s words painted the story of The Henna Artist in my mind in a way that must be as lovely as I imagine Lakshmi’s henna brush did for “her ladies!”

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