Sonali Dev is an author I heard about for quite some time
before picking up her first book. Most of my major books
blogs were raving about Dev's writing, but as someone with
no interest in watching Bollywood movies, I figured a book
series labeled Bollywood
would not be my cup of tea. But boy howdy, was I wrong. I
dearly love a good angsty romance. And Sonali Dev can
deliver that in spades! Set after A CHANGE OF
HEART, A DISTANT HEART can nonetheless be appreciated on
its own. Although Goodreads does not list A DISTANT HEART as
book 4 in the Bollywood
series, it clearly is, including many of the same characters
from book 3 A CHANGE OF
HEART.
While Dev's books are presented as romance, they feel like
crossover genre reads to me. Women's fiction, mystery, and
romance combine with the joy of learning about a rich
culture I am not intimately familiar with. Dev's books are
lush pageants of color, taste, and emotion. A DISTANT HEART
feels more firmly in the Women's Fiction camp with a
romance enlivening it, rather than a "simple" romance. Much
of the book is beautifully heart-wrenching.
Kimi and Rahul struggle with so many challenges that both
unite them and separate them. Class distinctions in their
native Mumbai, terrible medical disease and uncertainty, and
loss. Yet there is the presence of hope and dreams, of
friendship and love. This book brings me to tears over and
over. Tears of both sorrow and of joy. There are a lot of
raw emotions here that really illuminate the underlying
messages of hope and connection. Dev's A DISTANT HEART will
be a book that lingers in my heart for years to come,
whispering words of love and complex emotion.
Her name means “miracle” in Sanskrit, and to her parents,
that’s exactly what Kimaya is. The first baby to survive
after several miscarriages, Kimi grows up in a mansion at
the top of Mumbai’s Pali Hill, surrounded by love and
privilege. But at eleven years old, she develops a rare
illness that requires her to be confined to a germ-free
ivory tower in her home, with only the Arabian Sea
churning outside her window for company…. Until one person
dares venture into her world.
Tasked at fourteen years old with supporting his family,
Rahul Savant shows up to wash Kimi’s windows, and an
unlikely friendship develops across the plastic curtain of
her isolation room. As years pass, Rahul becomes Kimi’s
eyes to the outside world—and she becomes his inspiration
to better himself by enrolling in the police force. But
when a life-saving heart transplant offers the chance of a
real future, both must face all that ties them together
and keeps them apart.
As Kimi anticipates a new life, Rahul struggles with
loving someone he may yet lose. And when his investigation
into a black market organ ring run by a sociopathic gang
lord exposes dangerous secrets that cut too close to home,
only Rahul’s deep, abiding connection with Kimi can keep
her safe—and reveal the true meaning of courage, loss, and
second chances.
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