Sonja’s Pick(s)
May 2025
The Henna Artist (The Jaipur Trilogy Book 1)
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur (The Jaipur Trilogy, Book 2)
Alka Joshi
Mira Publishing, 2020, 2021
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur
I have been in Florida over the winter and our book club has been reading this series. I have now finished this second book which I enjoyed more than the first. It follows the life of Malik the young boy Lakshmi mentored. He has attended a British school and is quite polished. He heads to Jaipur to apprentice with the Jaipur Royal Palace who are constructing a state of the art cinema that collapses! As a boy grown up on the streets, he is suspicious and wants to uncover the truth. Only when Lakshmi becomes involved, does it all become right.
The Henna Artist
What is unique is the book’s description of life in Jaipur, India in the 1950’s and its significance. Lakshmi escapes an arranged and abusive marriage and travels alone to the city of Jaipur where she becomes a henna artist, most often to wealthy women. The art is mostly used as a provocative design on the body and, even today, a bride is adorned with designs.
It is a time when India is trying to let loose the shackles of British rule and become independent and that is precisely what Lakshmi is trying to do.
Twists and turns, her ex-husband turns up and brings with him a 13-year-old sister, Radha, she did not know she had. We see her outlook on life versus the traditional and the young girl who is in love out of her class. To become independent is very unusual for any woman at the time no matter what her social status. She mentors a young, orphaned boy Malik. Problems arise and she must leave Jaipur for a small city in the Himalayas with a new opportunity at a local clinic.
There is a third volume, which I will read SOON!