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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
challenging
Loveable characters:
Complicated
They get married less than 50% in, it takes place in colonial India and doesn't mention any of the problems of the time, I also didnt finish it and stoped around 66% though it cause I just couldn't want to finish it.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
3.5
Maddy Bright is newly returned to Bombay after initially being sent away for her health and then staying away for schooling. Even though she spent a little of her childhood in Bombay before moving to England, Maddy feels adrift and unexcited at being "home". But when she meets Luke on New Year's Eve 1913, things begin to change.
Luke Devereaux is stationed in India overseeing the mobilization of Indian troops should the mounting tension across Europe signal an arising need.
As Luke and Maddy meet and fall in love, begin to plan a life together, they're torn apart by war. Then Luke his injured, he's declared dead to his friends and family, and his memories of Maddy and everything before are lost.
Luke fights to regain who he was, and Maddy fights to figure out who she might have to be without Luke but never wanting to give up hope that he's out there somewhere. Will they be able to fight their way back to one another?
The blurb immediately drew me into this story. This is the first book I've read by Jenny Ashcroft, and it's certainly a sumptuous, romantic, heartbreaking, harrowing story. It's hopeful, yet often soul crushing, and I felt like it really got into the nitty gritty of the perils of the separation of war. At least, the perils of this specific couple during wartime.
While it touches upon the effect war has on others, the scope of the story is narrowly set upon Maddy and Luke. The secondary characters are there to revolve around their orbit enhancing their story. I'd say besides Maddy's mother (whose own depth of story effects Maddy herself) there's very little depth given to other secondary characters. This is not necessarily a bad thing, this is after all Luke and Maddy's story, but if you're coming into it expecting a more epic scope and societal commentary on the times you may have to switch gears a bit.
I do think this focus, however, really drives the story. The teetering precipice of whether or not Luke and Maddy will ever be reunited carried me through the book and was one I absolutely needed to see swiftly through to the end regardless of the lack of sleep I got. I liked the author playing with the timeframe of the narrative as the story, at various points, jumps ahead and from Maddy to Luke's point of view and back again. In that way we might see something that happens in the future but don't get the full picture until we connect it to the past. I liked how sometimes you form one impression of how things are going to work out between Luke and Maddy only to discover you're not entirely correct because of certain missing pieces. This is probably one of my favorite aspects of the story.
However, towards the end, I felt like all the obstacles and setbacks were becoming a bit tedious. It was one thing after another. Seemingly everything was conspiring against our lovers. There were just so many and so varied that by the time we get to where the story needs to begin wrapping up, it felt too rushed. In this way, for me, it loses a little bit of that romance element, the undying love and devotion between Luke and Maddy gets a bit suffocated underneath everything that continues to pile on top of them.
Regardless, it was a compelling story, it kept my attention and really made me care about Luke and Maddy's outcome.
*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Maddy Bright is newly returned to Bombay after initially being sent away for her health and then staying away for schooling. Even though she spent a little of her childhood in Bombay before moving to England, Maddy feels adrift and unexcited at being "home". But when she meets Luke on New Year's Eve 1913, things begin to change.
Luke Devereaux is stationed in India overseeing the mobilization of Indian troops should the mounting tension across Europe signal an arising need.
As Luke and Maddy meet and fall in love, begin to plan a life together, they're torn apart by war. Then Luke his injured, he's declared dead to his friends and family, and his memories of Maddy and everything before are lost.
Luke fights to regain who he was, and Maddy fights to figure out who she might have to be without Luke but never wanting to give up hope that he's out there somewhere. Will they be able to fight their way back to one another?
The blurb immediately drew me into this story. This is the first book I've read by Jenny Ashcroft, and it's certainly a sumptuous, romantic, heartbreaking, harrowing story. It's hopeful, yet often soul crushing, and I felt like it really got into the nitty gritty of the perils of the separation of war. At least, the perils of this specific couple during wartime.
While it touches upon the effect war has on others, the scope of the story is narrowly set upon Maddy and Luke. The secondary characters are there to revolve around their orbit enhancing their story. I'd say besides Maddy's mother (whose own depth of story effects Maddy herself) there's very little depth given to other secondary characters. This is not necessarily a bad thing, this is after all Luke and Maddy's story, but if you're coming into it expecting a more epic scope and societal commentary on the times you may have to switch gears a bit.
I do think this focus, however, really drives the story. The teetering precipice of whether or not Luke and Maddy will ever be reunited carried me through the book and was one I absolutely needed to see swiftly through to the end regardless of the lack of sleep I got. I liked the author playing with the timeframe of the narrative as the story, at various points, jumps ahead and from Maddy to Luke's point of view and back again. In that way we might see something that happens in the future but don't get the full picture until we connect it to the past. I liked how sometimes you form one impression of how things are going to work out between Luke and Maddy only to discover you're not entirely correct because of certain missing pieces. This is probably one of my favorite aspects of the story.
However, towards the end, I felt like all the obstacles and setbacks were becoming a bit tedious. It was one thing after another. Seemingly everything was conspiring against our lovers. There were just so many and so varied that by the time we get to where the story needs to begin wrapping up, it felt too rushed. In this way, for me, it loses a little bit of that romance element, the undying love and devotion between Luke and Maddy gets a bit suffocated underneath everything that continues to pile on top of them.
Regardless, it was a compelling story, it kept my attention and really made me care about Luke and Maddy's outcome.
*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Edelweiss, NetGalley, & St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.
DNF @ 25%
Oh man, this one hurt. I wanted to love this so much, and I know you can't judge a book by the cover but THIS COVER!! Overall the writing was beautiful, totally atmospheric and lovely - but I could not find myself interested in either of the main characters in any way. (And I'm not sure if things get deeper further on, but there's a strong insta-attraction at play that never felt solid enough for me.)
I've spoken to others that said while the beginning does start slow, they found themselves flying through the last 40% of it, unable to put it down. Unfortunately for me, I can't get that far.
DNF @ 25%
Oh man, this one hurt. I wanted to love this so much, and I know you can't judge a book by the cover but THIS COVER!! Overall the writing was beautiful, totally atmospheric and lovely - but I could not find myself interested in either of the main characters in any way. (And I'm not sure if things get deeper further on, but there's a strong insta-attraction at play that never felt solid enough for me.)
I've spoken to others that said while the beginning does start slow, they found themselves flying through the last 40% of it, unable to put it down. Unfortunately for me, I can't get that far.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thank you for the Gifted Audiobook Macmillan Audio, St. Martins Press and Netgalley.
This book was an emotional journey through a love story started on the precipice of WWI. Torn apart by war and its side effects, this love story has to persevere through time, place, circumstances, and above all emotions. The whole time I was listening I felt the weight of the sorrow of the characters. Reading at the end of 2020 and into 2021 I had to take this book slowly because of all the emotion contained within. If you like an emotional romance with a descriptive setting, then you will enjoy this book.
This book is low on steam and mostly closed door.
This book was an emotional journey through a love story started on the precipice of WWI. Torn apart by war and its side effects, this love story has to persevere through time, place, circumstances, and above all emotions. The whole time I was listening I felt the weight of the sorrow of the characters. Reading at the end of 2020 and into 2021 I had to take this book slowly because of all the emotion contained within. If you like an emotional romance with a descriptive setting, then you will enjoy this book.
This book is low on steam and mostly closed door.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
This book is set during WWI and describes briefly some battle scenes.
10%
Life is too short for books which fail to hook you in, and even though I'm not a reader of romance, the fact that this was set in India, British India at that, made me want to dive into it.
Here's a problem, though - my country might have been exotic two-three centuries ago, but in 2020, it's a little difficult to swallow the same sort of image being perpetuated, especially when the history of the British Raj is available with ease and in varied forms.
The one mention of "Indian waiters" really had me scratching my head in disbelief - this is a story set in India occupied by a foreign power, so quite obviously the waiters will be the colonised folk. Did their ethnicity require a mention?
It took me out of the world of the book, which was rather thinly described (Bombay was not a city bursting at its seams in 1913/14; it is so now).
I also did not find the protagonist Maddy, nor her infatuation with Luke, interesting enough to keep reading.
This might be a book other people will enjoy. I did not, the one-tenth of it that I read at least. It did not seem to me worthwhile to invest any more effort in reading it than I had.
Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, for the ARC.
emotional
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I must confess. The first thing that appealed to me about this book was its title. "Bombay" is not just a word, it is a feeling. I have never been able to feel as close to the word "Mumbai" because I have grown up in Bombay. So when I saw the ARC of this book listed on NetGalley, I had to have it, irrespective of its genre. It has been ages since I've read a romantic drama, but I am glad that this time lapse was rectified by this book. It is such a gem!
Maddy Bright and Luke Devereaux meet in the British-governed Bombay of 1913. Head over heels in love from the moment they see each other, they start making plans for the future, which has different plans for them. The First World War brings in its wake an unexpected upheaval in the lives of the young couple and their families.
Jenny Ashcroft has a firm grasp over her plot at all times. With a deft use of varied timelines, she creates a narrative that sustains the interest of the reader from the first page to the last. Rather than succumbing to plain old mushy romance, Meet Me in Bombay creates a fabulous blend of romantic moments along with adequate drama and thrills to interest even a mature reader. Her tendency to hint at a change in the characters' destinies with appropriately-placed suspenseful statements creates an stimulating atmosphere that doesn't allow the reader to relax.
In spite of not being in a mood for romantic dramas, and in spite of not having read romantic dramas in almost a decade, Meet Me in Bombay kept me hooked. It was wonderful to see my Bombay from the eyes of a outsider. Initially, I thought this book might have certain similarities with "East of the Sun" by Julia Gregson due to the timelines of both the books, but thankfully, it doesn't go that way and is a much better read.
If I had read this book in my teens of early twenties, I have no doubt that this would have been an emotional read with a 5/5 rating. But with middle age comes a little rigidity and stinginess in giving ratings to books. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all lovers of historical fiction or romantic dramas. I'd rate it 4.5, thereby still giving me the pleasure of putting a 5 star rating on Goodreads.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
**********************************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever!, for more reviews and other book-related discussions and fun.
Maddy Bright and Luke Devereaux meet in the British-governed Bombay of 1913. Head over heels in love from the moment they see each other, they start making plans for the future, which has different plans for them. The First World War brings in its wake an unexpected upheaval in the lives of the young couple and their families.
Jenny Ashcroft has a firm grasp over her plot at all times. With a deft use of varied timelines, she creates a narrative that sustains the interest of the reader from the first page to the last. Rather than succumbing to plain old mushy romance, Meet Me in Bombay creates a fabulous blend of romantic moments along with adequate drama and thrills to interest even a mature reader. Her tendency to hint at a change in the characters' destinies with appropriately-placed suspenseful statements creates an stimulating atmosphere that doesn't allow the reader to relax.
In spite of not being in a mood for romantic dramas, and in spite of not having read romantic dramas in almost a decade, Meet Me in Bombay kept me hooked. It was wonderful to see my Bombay from the eyes of a outsider. Initially, I thought this book might have certain similarities with "East of the Sun" by Julia Gregson due to the timelines of both the books, but thankfully, it doesn't go that way and is a much better read.
If I had read this book in my teens of early twenties, I have no doubt that this would have been an emotional read with a 5/5 rating. But with middle age comes a little rigidity and stinginess in giving ratings to books. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all lovers of historical fiction or romantic dramas. I'd rate it 4.5, thereby still giving me the pleasure of putting a 5 star rating on Goodreads.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
**********************************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever!, for more reviews and other book-related discussions and fun.
Thank you St. Martin's Press for the ARC!
Luke's storyline was good but other than that I couldn't really get into this book.
Luke's storyline was good but other than that I couldn't really get into this book.
I feel I can’t leave this review without first talking about the romanticism of colonial India written within it. This book centers around white British colonizers in Bombay, while the native Indian characters are all regulated to the background & to mostly subservient roles. From the beginning this really rubbed me the wrong way & colored my feelings of the book the entire time I was reading.
With that in mind, I do want to leave a review of the story itself. I was drawn to this book originally because of the beautiful cover & because I love historical fiction. However, I didn’t love this book. The main male character had a very interesting story arc - I did find myself rooting for him as he was one of the only characters I didn’t find infuriating. There were some good twists I wasn’t expecting (& others I did) & while I do think there were some strong sections in this book, ultimately I really think it should have been shorter.
Also, I hated how the female lead was portrayed - she was always making decisions based on how a man would feel about them (one of my biggest peeves). In fact a lot of characters were very unlikeable. At the end it was wrapped up nicely, if not a bit unbelievably, & I was left questioning how I felt about this book. Ultimately I decided on 3 stars.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
With that in mind, I do want to leave a review of the story itself. I was drawn to this book originally because of the beautiful cover & because I love historical fiction. However, I didn’t love this book. The main male character had a very interesting story arc - I did find myself rooting for him as he was one of the only characters I didn’t find infuriating. There were some good twists I wasn’t expecting (& others I did) & while I do think there were some strong sections in this book, ultimately I really think it should have been shorter.
Also, I hated how the female lead was portrayed - she was always making decisions based on how a man would feel about them (one of my biggest peeves). In fact a lot of characters were very unlikeable. At the end it was wrapped up nicely, if not a bit unbelievably, & I was left questioning how I felt about this book. Ultimately I decided on 3 stars.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.