This was one of the most interesting plotline I read recently. The characters were so well written and executed too. The writing style was easy and simple this the experience of reading was nice.
I love the way each scene was penned and the plotline was well paced too.

I just finished listening to The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel and here is my review.

Tulsi Gupta was raised by her mother and grandmother in their spice store. Raised to be a healer but Tulsi is restless and her heart is screaming that this isn’t the life she wants.

After Tulsi finds a letter her grandmother wrote but never sent, has Tulsi realizing she doesn’t know anything about her past and starts to dig. The more she learns, the more she is shell shocked.

The attractive neighbor next door is the kind of distraction she needs but it doesn’t stop Tulsi from opening herself up to the possibilities she wants for herself and to heal the generational trauma that has her family never moving forward.

Firstly the narrator of the audiobook did a fantastic job of bringing this book to life. I thoroughly enjoyed the character voices she did.

The 3 generations of women in this family all have different personalities and passions but Tulsi is pushing back against her heritage and wants more from her life. I loved her grandma. She was awesome. Very stubborn but she doesn’t miss a trick.

The family secrets are in abundance here so if you love family drama… This book has just what you need. It’s very well written and the character development is satisfying. I need the connection and I found commonality with all 3 women. It must be so hard to push against the women that raised you to be your own person.

I am a huge fan of natural medicine and the knowledge within this book is spot on.

4.5 stars!

Wonderful read. Thank you to @netgalley and @brillancepublishing for my gifted copy

It’s a heavy weight that’s placed on the next generation’s shoulders when they are expected to carry on the family business. It’s difficult, at times, to know if this is even what you want or if it was just required of you. Tulsi has a tough time figuring out how to make this work for her, almost hiding in the shadows and letting life happen. Then people come into her life and she sees there’s more out there for her. It’s heartwarming to see her change in this book. The characters draw you into their lives (and drama) and I enjoyed the time I spent with them.

While Patel’s skillful narration and the enchanting setting offer some redeeming qualities, the overall execution of the story leaves much to be desired. This book might appeal to fans of Patel's previous works, looking for familiar themes, but it falls short of the mark compared to her earlier novels.

Despite the intriguing elements of generational hierarchy, complex family dynamics, secrets, and exotic settings, The Curious Secrets of Yesterday fails to captivate. The plot is scattered, with too many loosely tied subplots.

The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel, despite being a Desi read, left me with mixed feelings. The story follows Tulsi, who is expected to become a spice healer and take over the family spice shop. The rich cultural backdrop and the hint of a family curse were intriguing, but I felt let down when the 'curse' turned out to be a family lie. The plot often felt scattered, trying to juggle too many subplots – from Tulsi's personal struggles to family dynamics, social media drama, and romance. It was a lot to take in, and not everything got the attention it deserved.

The romantic subplot between Tulsi and Lucas, her shop neighbor, was rushed and underdeveloped. Their interactions were mostly heavy, focusing on family issues, and lacked the light-hearted moments needed to build a believable connection. Tulsi’s character seemed to gain confidence only after being reassured by Lucas, which diminished her personal growth for me.

The family dynamics were both a strength and a weakness. Patel portrayed the complexities of familial expectations and tradition well, but the toxic nature of Tulsi's family made it hard to empathize with them. Devi, her mother, was overly dramatic, and Aruna, her grandmother, was controlling. Tulsi was often left to mediate, which became repetitive and exhausting.

One redeeming quality was the exploration of Indian culture and Ayurvedic traditions. I found the Ayurveda aspect enlightening. Patel captured the essence of feeling caught between two cultures perfectly, a sentiment many first-generation immigrants might relate to.

By the end of the book, I felt relieved that Tulsi pursued her own path, but disappointed that it took so much external validation for her to get there. The book tried to tackle too many issues, which diluted its overall impact.

In summary, The Curious Secrets of Yesterday had a lot of potential but struggled under the weight of its many subplots. While it didn’t completely hit the mark for me, there are aspects that I enjoyed, and you might find more connection to it than I did. I would recommend this as a one-time read.

Thank you to the NetGalley, and Brilliance Publishing for the advanced audiobook copy.

I gave this book 3.5 stars.
This book is part inter-generational family saga, part romance, part self-discovery story. It's a lot, and at times it felt overwhelming. While the elements were interesting, I almost wish they were each their own story. In addition to that, I'm personally a little tired of stories of South Asian American woman who are under the thumb of overbearing elders.

I was excited to read this story about Tulsi Gupta, raised by her mother and grandmother and tutored in the healing powers of spices. She was expected to carry on the tradition from her family's Salem spice shop but he was restless and reluctant because she wanted to follow her own path.

Thus began her plan to extricate herself from the family business slowly before breaking the news that she needed to find her own calling. In the process, she uncovered past secrets concerning her family that shook her to the core.

I loved the calming presence that Luke, the attractive neighbour next door to them, brought along. Her world was changing at a fast pace but he held her hand and encouraged her to do what was best for her even if it would hurt him.

I loved how it all turned out in the end. The world of spices and their properties was also a wonderful part of the story. I listened to the audio and the narrator did an awesome job.

Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for my first arc in exchange for an honest review.
Overall Rating: 3/5 Stars.
Plot: 3.5/5.
Characters: 4/5 for the main character, 2/5 for side characters.
Romance: 2.5/5; friends to lover but it was rushed – definitely not the focus of the book.
Spice: 0/5

PLOT - An enjoyable read with a very cool premise of a spice shop and a family tradition to work there and become spice healers, and our main character, Tulsi, who never had the opportunity to figure herself out and what she wanted from her life.
The plot leaves you wondering about the ‘potential curse’ (which I must admit I hoped was the case and was slightly disappointed that the whole conflict was just about a lie her family kept from MC) and is focused a lot on family dynamics.

ROMANCE - the romance was definitely a secondary focus and, although I liked the guy, his character was left very unexplored and the romance between him and Tulsi was very rushed. I think the romance should have been either completely removed or given more space and time to develop.
Additionally, I could not understand why they liked each other. the only conversations they had were about the tragic things that happened in their lives or their families. And sometime it even felt like each of them was trying to one up each other in who had it worse (you might not notice it at all; but once I realised that sometimes one would say something about their family, someone leaving or some tragic event and the other would counter with ‘yeah, my family does …’ instead of actually trying to talk about the experience the other one had. And it was a little annoying and after it happened a few times, I couldn’t stop noticing it. That being said, im pretty sure it was always Tulsi who did that).
They never had nice, chill moments together. It was always talking about issues or finding oneself and never just two people enjoying each other’s company. At the beginning the guy cooked for her once and it was so cute but since then, it was just deep conversations. I also feel like Tulsi didn’t take charge of what she wanted until she was reassured by the love interest that it was OK to do what she wanted, and only then was she confident enough to do it.
Additionally, Tulsi would think of him as quite a vital part of her life very early on.
“He didn’t just take her breath away, he became the air she needed” as much as I loved this sweet line, there was not enough relationship building between the characters to warren these sorts of feelings.

FAMILY DYNAMICS – I love complex family dynamics and how we can watch side characters getting redemption arc in becoming better people. But this was not really the case here. Tulsi’s family were honestly awful. An emotionally unavailable mother who would cry or walk away every time her daughter would ask the most basic questions. She made every situation about how she felt and poor Tulsi felt guilty to do anything because of how it would affect her mother emotionally. We saw a daughter being the more mature of the duo.
And the grandmother? F**k me. she was awful. She was controlling and manipulating. She even screamed out when Tulsi would do something she didn’t like or basically call the main character incompetent (not in that word) for not learning as fast as she wanted her to or not wanting the future she planned out for her. She would go as far as to basically pressure Tulsi to just have a kid that the grandmother can start teaching about the spices, with the first guy that was available and then leave the guy and not to seek romantic relationships. I hated her but what I hated the most was the fact that throughout the whole book, people lie, manipulate and mistreat Tulsi all the time and we are left watching her having to be the adult and mitigating all the situations.
Even squabbles between other people and her family were always dealt with by Tulsi, like giving her mom the advice on how to repair a relationship with a man whom she kept her pregnancy and his daughter from, or scheduling a lunch for her two grandmothers to talk out their issues (who used to be friends and are not anymore). Like she was constantly surrounded by narcissistic people, and she was the one coming to rescue and reason.
Also, when her whole life was turned upside down, she was left still feeling guilty if anyone spoke badly of her mother and grandmother and it felt very toxic – like the years of their narcissism caused Tulsi to feel the need to be overprotecting over them.

The character I loved the most was Ash. He was written very well, and I loved seeing him get a ‘happy ending’. And, unlike her family, he actually steps up and takes some charge.

I, personally, think that this book suffered from trying to do too much.
• We have the plot of Tulsi wanting more from her life
• as well as her having to deal with all the lies that were kept from her (literally believing her father had died),
• while at the same time have complex family dynamics between pretty much everyone in her family,
• a fake social media account that spread fake information about the shop as well as having to unpack who did it (which also didn’t hit hard because we didn’t have the time to establish that character well)
• AND 2 romances that were underdeveloped (and its odd to say but the rekindling of the romance between her mother and the father who didn’t know of his own daughter’s existence, was the better of the two).

I think by the end of the book I just felt bad for Tulsi. Everyone treated her questionably her whole time, preventing her from doing anything she wanted because they had other plans for her. she missed out on her extended family because of the lies and deceit that benefited the mother and mostly the grandmother (she was the real issue of the book). To the point that when she decides to do one thing for herself, and her love interest is like ‘go ahead I will wait’ I felt happy for her even though that should have been how she was treated anyways.
Because of her family emotional control and unavailability, Tulsi is left to think she ought to be grateful and happy when others show her basic human decency,

That being said, if the book focused on one or two of the plot point and took more time to develop them, this could have been a great book. But it was trying to do too many things in a far too short of a book.

This lighthearted family drama was an interesting dive into an Indian family of women that treasured their independence but each had hidden secrets that they were fighting to keep. This was also a novel about forgiveness and choosing what decisions are right for your own life.

Tulsi, who is thirty years old, is still being pressured by her mother and grandmother to keep their family traditions. She is discontent and wants something more for her life. Struggling with becoming her own person but not letting down the family that depends on her, she seeks comfort in the arms of the new deli owner next door.

I enjoyed learning about the Indian culture and about the multitude of uses of the different spices spoken about in this book.

Thank you Net Galley and Brilliance Publishing for the Advanced Reader Copy and I look forward to recommending this when published on June 1, 2024. #NetGalley #TheCuriousSecretsOfYesterday

Review of “The Curious Secrets of Yesterday”

By: Namrata Patel

Available June 1/2024

Check it Out on Goodreads!!

Disclaimer: Please note that I received an Audio ARC from NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“The Curious Secrets of Yesterday” by Namrata Patel is a delightful journey through family dynamics, traditions, and self-discovery that keeps you hooked till the very end.

Patel’s storytelling immediately draws you in, blending mystery, romance, and family drama seamlessly. As Tulsi delves deeper into her family’s history, you can’t help but feel invested in her journey of understanding and growth.

The dynamic between Tulsi, her mother, and grandmother adds depth and warmth to the narrative, making the characters feel like old friends. Their interactions are filled with humor, love, and relatable moments that tug at your heartstrings. Throughout the book, you’ll find yourself experiencing a whirlwind of emotions alongside Tulsi. From frustration with her half-sisters to moments of empathy and understanding, Patel’s writing captures the complexity of human relationships with authenticity and grace.

“The Curious Secrets of Yesterday” is more than just a story—it’s a heartfelt exploration of love, forgiveness, and finding one’s place in the world. With its compelling characters and engaging plot, this book is a must-read for anyone in search of a captivating and meaningful read. Namrata Patel has crafted a truly special novel that lingers in your heart long after you’ve turned the last page.

Get it at…

📗 - Hard Copy -📗

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📱 - Digital - 📱

Kobo - (Not Available at Time of Review)

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🎧 - Audio - 🎧

Audible

Libro.FM - (Not Available at Time of Review)

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this audio.

I loved this book!! It started off a bit slow but it picked up and enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

I loved this book. It's about finding your own path in life, whether it's following tradition or striking out on your own. It's timeless and beautifully written. The narrator for the audiobook was wonderful.