I was so excited that Alka Joshi had a new book being published! I loved her Henna Artist trilogy and this new book did not disappoint. For those who love historical fiction this is a great choice!

Loved the textured history with a unique view point for a time once lived. Enjoyed the bright description of India and the travel journey. The main character development ( Sona ) growth was shown here beautifully, a discovery of one's true self needs and path to happiness. Although the story started off slow for me and didn't agree with with some of the decisions this was such a beautiful story and enjoyed every minute of it. The audio was such a phenomenal way to read the story. I read and listen to this and it was such a wonderful experience.


Thank you NetGalley for the Ebook and audiook!

This is a review of the audiobook.

I love the historical and cultural elements that were brought to life in this book. It truly was an immersive novel that eloquently handled complex issues of race, identity, and family ties. What I didn’t love about this story, though, was the contrived bond between Sona and Mira. It felt rushed and much too shallow to support the plot of this novel. The premise is good, but the execution fell short.

Sona, a young, sheltered nurse is enthralled by the stories and life of her worldly patient, Mira at their hospital in Bombay. Over the course of six days, Sona and Mira develop a close friendship. Sona finds herself thrust into an adventure after Mira passes away unexpectedly and Mira is let go from her post at the hospital. She journeys across Europe to follow through with Mira’s request, and learns more about Mira and herself through the journey.

I struggled to get through this book. I really was interested in the story and wanted to see where it was going, but I found Sona to be so naive and thick-headed that she was insufferable. I kept hoping we’d see her grow, but you don’t see that until the very end (and if you read other reviews, this growth really bothered some readers. I’m indifferent to this and can appreciate the lean toward a life like Mira).

Some things I felt lacked significant emotion or impact: the death of Mira seems to be taken with very little grief by all who learn of it, aside from the first day with our FMC, who only knew her for six days; in fact Sona seems to grieve over Mira’s death far longer than her own mother’s; the attempted sexual assault in Paris is glazed over; the first time immediately following.

I did push through to finish the book and I did enjoy the parallels of Sona’s patient Dr Stoddard with her own father, and I really enjoyed the cheekiness of his character. I felt for Indira and wished we’d seen some kind of wrap up for her. Rebecca’s story felt unfinished.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Six Days in Bombay had all the ingredients for a story I thought I’d love—lush settings, cultural immersion, and emotional depth. Unfortunately, the heart of the novel, the central relationship between the main character and her patient, didn’t work for me. The intense connection between them felt rushed and implausible. We’re meant to believe that in less than a week, they formed such a deep bond that it becomes the emotional core of the story. I struggled to suspend disbelief; it all felt too forced and underdeveloped. There, I said it.

That said, Joshi’s writing is beautiful. Her prose is evocative and rich, painting vivid portraits of Bombay’s streets and its layered cultural identity. I found myself completely swept away by the sensory details of the setting—sights, sounds, and smells came alive on the page. The novel shines most when it leans into travel and memory. Joshi has a real gift for place-writing, and it’s that immersive quality that kept me turning the pages.

While the premise fell flat for me, readers who love travel and lyrical writing styles may enjoy this book. I just wish the emotional core had felt as authentic as the world around it.

What is your favorite coming of age story?

Sonia is a young nurse in Bombay. She has grown up ostracized as the daughter of Englishman and an Indian mother. Her father left the young family when she was three years old. Her brother died shortly after, and her mother worked hard to raise her. Now at twenty-three, she takes pride in her work as a nurse. Over the course of six days, she spends time with a new patient, Mira Novak. Mira helps her to see life in a new way and to help her to leave her sheltered world and take a new look at life. Will Sonia find love, closure on what happened to her father, and what she wants to do with her life moving forward?

My thoughts on this novel:
• This was a great coming of age novel and I liked seeing Sonia’s growth through the novel.

• I previously read and enjoyed The Henna Artist by this author, and I enjoyed reading this work by her as well.

• This novel was set in the spring of 1937, mostly in Bombay, but there is also travel to Europe. I thought it was a fascinating time period as Ghandi was mentioned and the relationship between Indians and the English is tense. There is also signs of the lead up to WWII.

• Sonia has unresolved issues with her father Owen Falstaff. Owen swept her mother off her feet and lived with her as a husband until he suddenly announced one day that he was leaving for England and that he already had a family back there. He sent money for Sonia’s birthday every year, but she never heard from him again after he left when she was three. It made me wonder how many children were born like this and abandoned? Why did some men abandon their Indian wife and children while others brought them back to England?

• Sonia is called blackie by English people and white by Indian people. She doesn’t feel comfortable in either world and is constantly trying to prove herself.

• Mira Novak was a fascinating character. I was interested to learn at the end that she was based on real artist. She challenged Sonia’s feeling on what life could be. Mira is also half white and half Indian, but she has become a successful artist and does not live by modern conventions. Sonia is half scandalized by her tales and half fascinated.

• Women’s health was a big issue in this book. It disturbed the characters that in 1937, a woman could die from a miscarriage. It’s unfortunate that is can still happen today. An Indian doctor realized things were going wrong, but his superior, a white doctor, did not take him seriously.

• There was some romance in this story, but really it was Mira and Sonia’s story. There were also a few slight mysterious events that were resolved by the end of the story that kept me hooked.

• This was a perfect book to read for Asian American Pacific Islander Month

Overall, Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi was a fascinating historical fiction novel with great characters and setting.

***Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this ARC***
Alka Joshi is one of my favorite authors. I loved The Henna Artist series. She’s very talented and I love learning about India. In this novel, she took us from Bombay to Istanbul to Prague to Paris and then to London. It’s not fast-paced and was more of a slow build. I did find myself getting frustrated with the main character not standing up for herself but I realize that was intended to show her growth. I was irritated by how she allowed herself to be treated. I get annoyed by dumb misunderstandings that change the course of one’s life and this was all too common in this book. There was a good bit of culture, both Indian and European and I learned a lot while reading.

As a South Asian healthcare worker, Six days in Bombay resonated with me for a lot of reasons. The main character, Sona, is a biracial nurse who struggles with her identity and with her financial situation. She has a good heart, but she is thrown a lot of challenges. She lives with her mother, who was abandoned by her white husband, who ended up having a family back in the UK. Joshi really covers how colonialism destroys families and culture, and at times it was gut-wrenching to read. She also deals with colorism and classism in a way that is accessible but also relatable to everybody, not just South Asians. I'm a huge fan of Joshi's work and I can't wait for her next works.

The writing was fine, but the whole story felt too fantastical. I personally couldn't stand the characters, and was disappointed in the events at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC.

A thrilling crime mystery about art. Learned so much about Indian history and myth. One of the best indian novels I have read.

I loved Alka Joshi’s previous novels and her new one is just terrific! It’s a totally new story, not connected to her previous work, and an interesting study in human behavior. Young nurse Sonaara meets famous painter Mira, who has come to the hospital to recover from a miscarriage, The circumstances are not quite clear, but Sona finds herself drawn into Mira’s life through her stories. Mira’s seemingly indifferent husband has Sona feeling very protective of Mira, and Mira’s stories about her life have Sona entranced. The two women share having an half Indian half white heritage with all the baggage and discrimination that entails, but Mira seems to have been able to rise above it. When Mira suddenly dies, Sona falls under suspicion (or perhaps is set up by a fellow nurse) and loses her job. Mira has left Sona 4 paintings that she wants Sona to take to 4 people in Paris. With the support and encouragement of a dear friend Sona takes the opportunity and leaves for Paris on a journey that is not just fulfilling the wishes of a dead patient, but also one of self discover. With each person Sona talks to, she hears about a different Mira than the one she knew, and learns that just as Mira is not exactly what Sona thought she was, Sona herself is also more than what she had supposed herself to be.

I have been a huge fan of Alka Joshi since The Henna artist. Her writing is eloquent and beautiful and her stories never fail to touch the heart. Here is a bit about the book:

“In her first stand-alone novel since her bestselling debut, The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi uses the life of painter Amrita Sher-Gil, the "Frida Kahlo of India," as inspiration for the story's beginning to explore how far we'll travel to determine where we truly belong. This sweeping novel of identity and self-discovery takes readers from Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London, to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter's death.”

Joshi leans heavily into identity and self discovery with this book as the main character, Sora, is Anglo-Indian. She has never felt like she fit in anywhere. As always, Joshi gives us a strong sense of place with her lush descriptions. It is easy to feel like you are on the streets of Bombay while reading. I love that the character Mira was inspired by a real painter Amrita Sher-Gil, a Hungarian-Indian artist, and I enjoyed doing some research on her while reading!

I definitely recommend this book for those who enjoy historical fiction. It also makes a great book club pick!

[Absolutely loved it]

As always, this was another terrific read by this author! I love her storytelling so so much, she just has the ability to make you feel apart of that world. The characters were all so vivid and unique. I absolutely adored this book from start to finish. Very well done! The narration of the audiobook was also excellent and highly recommend. I read in tandem of the audio and it was perfection. Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free advanced copy of this ebook and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you HTP Hive for inviting me to read and review (thanks also to Park Row Books, HTP Books, HTP Audio for the advanced readers copies via Netgalley). I’ve yet to read The Henna Artist so this was my first by Joshi!

The title is misleading as Sona goes from Bombay to Prague to Paris to Florence to London over the course of weeks so it’s not as if the story takes place over the course of only six days in India. We go on this journey with her through her inexperienced eyes as she also wrestles with her mixed identity, dreams, and desires. While it’s mentioned here and there I wish there was a bit more on Sona’s grief that contributes to the push for her to leave India (I won’t give any spoilers here). The chapters are lengthy (by audio some chapters are an hour long) and it took a while for it to gain any kind of steam for me. It’s written in a way that is introspective: here is Sona, a young mixed-race Indian nurse, who while naive to the world embarks on a cross-continental journey of self-discovery after an eccentric patient, Mira, also mixed race, she cared for suddenly dies and leaves in Sona’s care her final few paintings to deliver to those from Mira’s past. Despite this, I never felt like we get to know Sona as well as we could’ve.

It was okay but not what I was expecting and there were a lot of brief side characters to keep track of. Still, I know many enjoy her The Henna Artist and I’d like to give that one a chance at some point. Content includes mentions of infidelity, an attempted sexual assault, and a brief detailed sex scene. I give it a lackluster and generous 3/5

Another one of my favorite authors has written an emotionally absorbing story, loosely based on a real Indian artist, Amrita Sher-Gil. The year is 1937, a time when the world was undergoing many threats, from fights for workers rights, to Mussolini and Hitler. Sona is a nurse at a small hospital in Bombay, where she encounters Mira, an artist who instantly befriends her in the six days she is in hospital. Sona has not seen much of the world, and feels responsible for the well being of her mother. As an Anglo-Indian, her identity is always at issue, too Indian to be accepted as British, but made fun of by her Indian classmates. There was so much to unpack in this book, and it was hard to put it down. I highly recommend to everyone, as Joshi has again written an unforgettable novel. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi is an engaging and beautifully written story set in 1930s India. It follows Sona, a nurse who gets caught up in a mystery after a brief friendship with an artist named Mira. The story takes her from Bombay to Europe, and along the way, she learns a lot about herself and her roots. The writing is vivid, the characters feel real, and the historical setting adds so much depth. It’s a thoughtful and emotional read that fans of historical fiction will really enjoy.

I discovered Alka Joshi’s writing with her debut book, The Henna Artist. It was a trilogy of books that kept me spellbound while imagining it was me in the vividly rendered areas of India where the series took place. Naturally I jumped at the chance to explore another place in India, this time under British occupation.

One of my biggest fears with reading a new book by an author whose writing I love is that the story or characters aren’t going to be as captivating as previous books. With that, I shouldn’t have worried. Joshi tackles British occupation, the societal views on Anglo-Indians, and the very different personal experiences of two Anglo-Indian women.

Sona has an Indian mother and an English father who had returned back to England after siring two children, leaving the three in poverty. Their mother is a talented seamstress, but it’s not enough to provide more than the bare minimum. Sona is trained as a nurse, and works in a hospital in Bombay. Their combined income doesn’t afford them any safety net, yet Sona has big dreams. She doesn’t want to stay confined to Bombay forever, and dreams of exploring the world, having new experiences, and meeting all kinds of interesting people. So far, the only interesting people that she had met are patients at the hospital.

We are quickly introduced to the different strata of society in Bombay under British occupation, where British people were at the top, and Indian people were at the bottom, leaving no clear place for people like Sona. In some cases, they were able to benefit from their mixed background, but for the most part, people like Sona were looked down on by both the British and the Indians.

While working her usual night shift, we get to see who Sona really is in how she cares for her patients, and she’s a genuinely good, sweet, and smart woman who devotes her life to helping others and doing the right thing. She is always watching and trying to help, even outside of work, as demonstrated by her devotion to her mother and a friend who is in an abusive marriage with no way out. Yet her efforts backfire at times.

Despite being repeatedly told not to socialize with the patients, Sona finds herself drawn to Mira, another Anglo-Indian woman, but one who has lived a vastly different life than her own. Mira is a famous painter, who grew up in Europe and India, and makes it a habit to flaunt social customs. In today’s society, Mira wouldn’t stand out for her affairs with men and women, and a subsequent miscarriage, but in India in the 1930s, she was absolutely scandalous.

Sona and an Indian doctor both express concerns about Mira’s condition, but are scornfully dismissed by the British doctor. However, they were right, and Mira shows back up in the hospital in even worse condition. It shows a lot about how Indian people were treated as second-class citizens in their own country by the British, and how little value was assigned to their care. This wasn’t one of those situations where doctors care for all patients the same, and it ends up costing Mira her life, in a preventable tragedy.

Readers get to hear Sona’s thoughts, and if you want to hear the story in a beautiful, soft Indian-accented English, I highly recommend the audiobook, which I listened to for part of this. The book is slow-moving; the first half of this character-based story moves at a glacial pace, but Mira’s death around the midpoint of the story really catapults Sona into the more adventurous part of her journey when she’s tasked with keeping four of Mira’s favorite paintings safe and delivering them to three people who meant a lot to her—her first love Petra, her art agent Josephine, and her art tutor Paolo. Each of them live in different places, and Sona takes her promise seriously, after she is fired from the hospital in disgrace.

A fortunate coincidence finds Sona a friendship with someone who winds up serving as a sort of fatherly stand-in on her travels, and she is suddenly catapulted from thinking that she can’t possibly leave Bombay and her mother, to making plans to travel the world and leave home for the first time in her life. No matter how confining she finds Indian society, it’s a huge shock when she realizes that she will be leaving the comforting arms of her mother, who she has never been without before.

Sona really grows a lot over the course of this story. She goes from being sheltered and naïve to seeing the world, and for the most part, doing so on her own. I can’t imagine the bravery it takes to leave everything you know behind, but Sona does it beautifully and with grace. I loved seeing how much she changes and grows as her world continues to expand. A huge part of her change is getting to know more about who Mira was, and her growing sense of disillusionment as she uncovers aspects of Mira’s life that leave her frustrated and confused.

Even with the slower pace, this is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s kind of like how you can snarf down fast food, but want to savor a really nice meal. That’s how I look at it, and this was the same. I never found myself getting bored or feeling unmotivated to pick it up—rather, I was taking the time to see a version of Bombay, Prague, Paris, and Florence that I can never see in real life. There were good things and bad things that occurred over the course of the story, but we get to see how Joshi chooses to address the plight of both Anglo-Indians and Indian people colonized by the British, miscarriage, and how women who live outside the norm (and within the norms) dictated by society are viewed and treated.

Another great read by Alka Joshi. I always love her character development and feel like I am right there in the scenes as I am reading them. Her atmospheric descriptions really sets the tone for her books, especially this one. I felt like I was traveling along with the main character.

I am a huge fan of Alka Joshi and have enjoyed all of her previous books. I did not feel that this one hit the mark for me or was as compelling as her other books. It seemed to me to be more of a travel log of the cities that she visited and her relationships with some of the other characters seemed a bit forced actually. I wanted to warm up to the main character however, I did not find her particularly engaging. The book kept my interest till the end but fell short in captivating me.

NetGalley ARC review.

Loved this story. This is about a nurse in Bombay around the 1930s who has lead a very sheltered life. She is half Indian and half English which many people look down on in this age especially when India is trying to gain independence. Sona is just trying to provide for her mother but a chance encounter leads to Sona exploring her constant struggle between tradition and modernity.

After losing her job and an unexpected task to do she travels to Paris, Florence and Prague to return paintings to the indexed people and along the way she learns who she truly is.

She also learns how to accept and open herself up to love in the most unexpected and unconventional way but also healing from the past and the stain she thinks she carried all this time.

I loved this book as not many authors focus on India during this time period.