Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, things can be tough until you find the right people that match your energy.
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It could be because I miss many random things about home. It could be my understanding of figuring out your culture among different cultures… But I loved how smooth, enjoyable and well-written this book was.

Maya is half British, half Indian. Her mother was from Delhi, but circumstances landed her in Bangalore where she meets Maya’s British dad, the rest is flowers, chocolate and romance; or so Maya has been led to believe. In truth, much like the slow change from complete darkness to the beginnings of sunlight in the Arctic, Maya goes through a journey of shocks, recovered memories and self-discovery.

In the midst of changes, loss and self-discovery she will begin a cooking club using the dishes her mother has painstakingly written and her own skills as a chef, in an attempt to survive and thrive. She will face her own fears and insecurities, polar bears and friends who come to depend on her… all as her memory begins to come back to her piece by piece.

Maya was a difficult character to read about because I share similarities and differences with her in equal measure. I was frustrated by her dependency and her unwillingness to try things, simply because she had never done it before, used as an evasive mechanism. I wish she could have seen how amazing she was earlier and that every version of her mattered.

TRIGGERS
The book touches on different types of trauma with a gentle hand. Mental health, abuse and suicide are weaved into the story, but it is well done and respectful.

real good for a debut!! it had more depth than i thought it would've and was quite a sensory trip with the descriptions of the food and the desolate and wild arctic. i also really liked the how the transition of the arctic environment from the darkness in the polar nights to finally seeing the light is parallel to maya's journey

The setting for this book made me reminiscence about my own Northern Lights adventure - the cold and dark is hard but the beauty of the surroundings great!

You emphasised with Maya not really knowing where she fitted in and seemingly also trying to please other people. I enjoyed how food brought back her memories as am a firm believer in smells and tastes locking memories in.

A lovely tale and shows you can achieve anything if you really want it.

What a great read! The plot was what go me first. However, I became captivated by Maya's journey toward claiming her own identity. Excellent characterization.

Ok first off…. this cover is just absolutely adorable. I really enjoyed this book. Although I will say that the first half was definitely more enjoyable for me than the second. As someone with anxiety I was really excited to read about it. But the story just kind of took a weird turn halfway through (though I was happy to read about the Ryan breakup) and kept getting weirder for me. Overall though I’m very happy I read it!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book: I thought it would be a cute romance and instead I found a journey to self discovery, staying strong in the face of adversity, overcoming the past and what I think is a good rep for anxiety (the mc goes through some difficult situations and the reactions to them were presented in a good way). There was food, friendships, aurora borealis and polar bears and a strong as hell main female character, very easy and enjoyable read!

Maybe it was the cute book cover, but The Arctic Curry Club seemed like the perfect set up for a sweet romcom of a book. I loved the brief descriptions of the Arctic, wish there were so much more, but the problem I had with the book was that it was so sad and gloomy. The boyfriend's betrayal wasn't even a big deal, because she there didn't even seem to be any attachment to him in the first place.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC for an honest review.

The Arctic Curry Club Dani Redd a frosty four-star read. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all, this is such a detailed story as you have the artic setting, the Indian culture and the food, mental health. I was expecting a romance with a little chill, but this wasn’t that, it was a good story that made you stop and think at every turn.

The Arctic Curry Club follows Maya, who recently uprooted her life to follow her boyfriend, Ryan, to Svalbard for his job. Arctic living is difficult for the toughest of people, but Maya mental illness causes her to especially struggle with the cold and darkness. When her boyfriend begins to pull away and buried family secrets come to the surface, Maya turns to cooking traditional family recipes with an Arctic twist as a way to cope.

I was drawn to The Arctic Curry Club based on the book description, Arctic setting, and food themes. But wow, this book ended up being a lot more than I expected. Maya's struggle with mental illness is prominent throughout the book and is exceptionally portrayed in a variety of circumstances. The author really put great care into how they wrote this character. Maya's flashbacks to her childhood are heartbreaking; it's like peeling back the layers of an onion getting to the bottom of everything. I loved the use of cooking as an outlet for her struggles and enjoyed the descriptive nature of the dinner club scenes. And Ryan would probably have been better off left in the snow dog kennels.....though that may not be fair to the dogs. The Arctic Curry Club tackles a lot of strong themes while simultaneously providing a message of hope that will resonate well with readers.

Trigger warning for mental illness themes, including the topic of suicide.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon Books UK for this ARC; this is my honest and voluntary review.

This book was good, it wasn’t the romantic story I’d expected and was more about the main characters discovery of what she wanted to do with her life. She had spent years doing things for other people - moving away from India for her dad, moving to the Arctic for her boyfriend… so now she wants to do something for herself. I loved the other characters she met along the way and the little family she created for herself in the Arctic.

I don’t think there was enough of a ‘desire’ implied in the early part of the book for her to be a chef… it briefly touched on her past in kitchens but she seemed pretty desperate to run away from that lifestyle so rather odd when she grasps the first chef job she’s offered in the Arctic. I would also have really liked to have read more about the trip to India. I don’t think she was a likeable main character as such - there wasn’t much humour in the book at all and it made it difficult for her to be liked.

A perfect winter read with tea and biscuits. It’s a book about relationships, family, mental health, friendship and life in sub zero temperatures of the Arctic. I really liked the character development Maya goes through, but I wish she had stood up for herself more. I really liked the wintery vibe, and Maya’s Arctic curry club. Her friendship with Adam, Mikkel and Rita was so wholesome. It touches on sensitive topics like bipolar, anxiety, drug abuse, sexual assault and suicide. As a person who deals with mental illnesses, I found the execution of mental illness satisfactory. What made me give it a 3 star rather than 4 or 5 is the writing style. A lot of times the writing was heavy towards descriptions of food, recipes and the making of dishes. As an Indian though I found the involvement of Indian food to be really good, it made my mouth water more than once.

Imagine living and working in a country that doesn’t have any daylight for months of the year and is icy cold! You’ve followed your boyfriend there but then have to go back to India for your fathers wedding. You keep getting flashbacks of various recipes and are given your mothers recipe book. You go back to the ice, taking spices with you, and start cooking for their jaded taste buds. It’s a huge success. Love life not going well but a new job in a brand new hotel comes up and your Indian/English hybrid menu takes off.
It was a slow starter but I really liked it at the end. Well donev

Thank you for the advance copy of this book!

I ADORED this book! First of all, I loved learning about life in Arctic and the background on Indian cuisine. My favorite part though was how mental health was described and handled in this book. Too many books use the words anxiety and depression so flippantly, but this was not the case with Dani Redd, This book was so much more complex than I expected, and I loved the twists and turns of the novel. I hope there's a sequel!

Such an unusual setting for the book, the Arctic, it made a pleasant change. A book all about cooking, finding yourself, a different take on romance too. Totally recommend

I absolutely adored this book. I was skeptic at first, but there were so many layers to the novel that kept appearing - mental health, relationships (on many levels), travel, cuisine, self-discovery.

At about 75% through I started to get mildly disappointed at some of the predictability. But I was quickly silenced with the last few traits at the end.

Of course, my favorite part was the descriptions of all the food. Mouthwatering. We’ll be ordering Indian for takeout, pronto.

Yes, yes, yes, and more yes. I picked up The Arctic Curry Club out of my reading order because I wanted something hopefully a bit lighter. I didn't exactly get that with Maya but what I got was so much better. Maya follows her boyfriend, Ryan, to the arctic and it's not exactly all she'd hoped it to be. The nights are never-ending, the cold is like nothing she'd felt before, and frankly it's all a bit depressing and scary. That's how it starts, but Maya is just so much more. I love the exploration of identity, culture, and family. I loved that the book takes us from London to Longyearbyen to Bangalore. There is so much development and growth in this book that you never want to stop reading, just waiting for the next discovery to be made.

5/5 Stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books UK, Avon for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC of this compelling book in return for my honest review. I was attracted to its delightful, eye-catching cover, which portrays a bright, joyful dinner in the far north. There were unexpected dark themes of anxiety, crippling fear, repressed memories, abuse, mental illness, suicide, and low self-esteem. The story seamlessly combines two of my favorite things, the Arctic and Indian food. I remained absorbed in the story.

Maya is of mixed Indian and British parentage. She lived in India until her mother died when she was 7. She grew up in England and has absolutely no memory of her early life in India. She absorbed the British culture but never felt that she truly belonged.

Her boyfriend has taken a job monitoring polar bears in the Arctic, and Maya accompanies him. Her lifetime of anxiety, fear, and panic attacks are magnified in the Arctic setting. She enjoys the northern lights, rides in a dogsled, learns to drive a snowmobile, and takes shooting lessons but is terrified by each new endeavor. She hates the bitter sub-zero temperatures, the 24 hour days of darkness, fears polar bears, and even an Arctic fox. Her anxiety is crippling, and she barely manages to function.

Her boyfriend thrives in this new environment. At first, he seems most patient and understanding, but soon tires of her inability to participate in community life. He slyly undermines her confidence. I felt that her panic attacks and self-doubts were handled with sensitivity and skillfully written so one could feel her anxiety. However, I felt that these were overwritten and described more than necessary.

Maya goes to work as a cook at a tourist stop a short distance from the town. Some of the tour group members mention they would prefer spicier meals to improve on the bland food being served. Maya knows little about Indian cooking but makes a few attempts. She finds that tasting her cooking sets off vague flashbacks of her early life in India.

Her father is being married in India to an old friend of her late mother. She travels to India for the first time for the wedding and begins to learn to cook Indian cuisine. This causes more flashbacks of her forgotten early life, and finally, some distressing secrets her father kept from her. She reconnects with a former male friend. Will a romance develop? Maya is given her late mother's recipe notebook and becomes proficient in preparing some of the meals. She returns to the Arctic, angry with her father.

Back in the Arctic, her dinners become a trendy tourist destination. She still lives with anxiety but now has a new skill that occupies her mind. She gains confidence and makes new friends. The descriptions of her meals caused me to rush out for Indian take-out. I wished her most popular recipes had been included at the end of the book. The dinners were overly described with no idea how to prepare or cook the delicious-sounding meals.

Several unfortunate events occur that mean the job at the tourist stop must end. She has been offered work as head cook at an upscale hotel in the Arctic town and is preparing to return to England. Has she found a place where she feels she truly belongs? A gripping story of living with anxiety and learning to overcome fears while building confidence and a feeling of belonging. (3.5 stars rounded up to 4).

I loved this book, an unromance novel, where the protagonist falls out of love with her boyfriend and begins to love herself a little more. What stands out about this book is the unique settings. From the chilly north to the heat of India, the settings drive the narrative as Maya tries to find her role after following boyfriend Ryan to the Arctic. In finding that Ryan perhaps isn't her everything, Maya also learns more about her long dead mother, her father and her early life in India.
Maya's talent is cookery, which adds another delicious and tantelising layer to the book: I'd love to see recipes for some of the things she cooks, even if reindeer is in short supply in Sussex!
Well worth a read, will leave you smiling.

Maya accompanies her boyfriend to the Arctic. As she battles against the frigid temperatures, constant darkness, and her own anxiety she begins to cook Indian food for the first time in her life. The food brings flashes memory and life in India before her mother died. As what she thought was truth begins to shift she need to find a way to create a life of her own. But how will she even survive in the Arctic?

This was a cute romantic read set in a very different setting than most romantic comedies. So that was a really neat aspect to the story.
Premise
Soon after upending her life to accompany her boyfriend Ryan to the Arctic, Maya realises it’s not all Northern Lights and husky sleigh rides. Instead, she’s facing sub-zero temperatures, 24-hour darkness, crippling anxiety – and a distant boyfriend as a result.

In her loneliest moment, Maya opens her late mother’s recipe book and cooks Indian food for the first time. Through this, her confidence unexpectedly grows – she makes friends, secures a job as a chef, and life in the Arctic no longer freezes her with fear.

But there’s a cost: the aromatic cuisine rekindles memories of her enigmatic mother and her childhood in Bangalore. Can Maya face the past and forge a future for herself in this new town? After all, there’s now high demand for a Curry Club in the Arctic, and just one person with the know-how to run it…
I loved watched Mayas fish out of water foray into the Arctic help her find herself as well as her passion for cooking. This would make a really cute movie as well!