Wow! My first time with James, and what a love story he paints amidst the landscape of India.

What I love, apart from the accurate portraits of Bombay life circa the 70s (you know, the social paradigms etc), is his fondness for the intricacies of Indian cuisine. My mouth was watering for veg khana on many occasions.

And my god, Sushmita (main girl), penned by James, down to her sexiest details had me wondering whom he based this characters looks on.... But I digress..

So, poor Danny (main boy), may he find the love of his life who turns out to be a..... Well..you best read this novel...plenty of twists and thrills to keep you glued to your Kindle.

Good fun!

Many thanks to Oceanview publishing and NetGalley for this advanced review copy🙏

I don't really know what I expected going into Bombay Monsoon, but I was unfortunately disappointed. As someone living in Pakistan, I have strong ties to India and I found the depiction of my neighboring country flawed at best and problematic at worst.

The book revolves around our main character, Dan, a reporter for UNI working in Bombay during the state of Emergency called by Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. During the first half, I found Dan to be an interesting character, in fact it was nice to see him standing up for India when the brash Russell put it down, but after a certain amount of time there is a subtle shift in Dan for the worst. He is resentful when his boss says they will be working on the 4th of July and will have a holiday on the 15th of August instead. Dan insinuates that the US is better than India because they have perfected the art of democracy despite being an older nation, and his tone is condescending, which left a bad taste in the reader's mouth. Furthermore, there are little jabs as to how backward Indian society is with regards to how women, servants, and others are treated and I found myself feeling offended at times on behalf of the Indian people.

The plot of the story was interesting at first, but as Dan got increasingly worse so did the book and unfortunately I ended up disliking it.

A novel that is both historical fiction and a mystery is very appealing, indeed.

I enjoyed experiencing a bit of India as it was in 1975, through Danny Jacob’s eyes. He’s a young journalist, attempting to cover the news from India at a critical time for its democracy, which lends this story some relevance to our own times. The story is written in a simple, straight forward way that seems most appropriate for a journalist.

Since this is a mystery, I will avoid any big reveals. Suffice it to say, Danny inadvertently puts himself in a couple or three dicey situations, depending on how one goes about counting. He’s got his job, social contacts, and a romantic entanglement. It turns out, all of them involve risks. Danny is definitely living dangerously.

Danny Jacobs is an extremely likable character, who has previously reported from Vietnam. That is, he is no stranger to danger or getting by in foreign lands. For that reason, I did find his naivete about a couple things to be incredible, even if his mind is fogged with the love of a certain woman. Another character, Willy, a wealthy Belgian man who befriends him, also seems to act in surprising ways. Meanwhile, I feel that the most intriguing character in this story was Sushmilla, Willy’s girlfriend. Her backstory and motives seem realistic, her actions explainable. I enjoyed the plot, even if I also feel that it was wrapped up a pinch too tidily.

The author poured his love of India into this novel, while also showing us parts of its society that made Danny deeply uncomfortable. Bombay Monsoon is a smart and thoughtful story that I admire, and would recommend. Thank you so much to Oceanview Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this. I’m glad I did.

"Mumbai meri jaan " i.e. Mumbai my life. The story is so captivating that drew me to its world of Mumbai. I could literally imagine everything going around me. I felt i was one of the citizen living at the time of emergency. It was my first historic book i definitely enjoyed it. I was like so excited to read this one like as soon as my request was accepted i started reading and spent my entire afternoon in reading it.
And definitely not have words to praise the author writing skills. It drew me into the world of mid-1970s.