Javier Moro - Passion India

The Maharaja of Kapurthala, a fair and educated governor, fell in love with a young Spanish girl called Anita Delgado and made her the princess of his kingdom. Anita was scorned and alienated by the English and the Maharaja’s own family who never accepted her because her humble origins. Through photographs that she brought from India in 1925, the author reconstructs the love story that became one of the biggest scandals in English society at the time.

A very interesting book telling about the life of Anita Delgado.
There are discussions if some things did really happen. I think we can never know for sure. So it is best to see this book as a novel based on true facts, but not as biography.

Vikram Seth - A suitable Boy

Set in the post-colonial India of the 1950s, this sprawling saga involves four families--the Mehras, the Kapoors, the Chatterjis and the Khans--whose domestic crises illuminate the historical and social events of the era. Like an old-fashioned soap opera (or a Bombay talkie), the multi-charactered plot pits mothers against daughters, fathers against sons, Hindus against Muslims and small farmers against greedy landowners facing government-ordered dispossession. The story revolves around independent-minded Lata Mehra: Will she defy the stern order of her widowed upper-caste Hindu mother by marrying the Muslim youth she loves? The search for Lata's husband expands into a richly detailed and exotically vivid narrative that crisscrosses the fabric of India. Seth's panoramic scenes take the reader into law courts, religious processions, bloody riots, academia--even the shoe trade. Portraits of actual figures are incisive; the cameo of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for example, captures his high-minded, well-meaning indecision.

With more than 1900 pages this was the greatest tome I have ever read.
Because of my studies I was not able to read it within a short time (this is really possible, I am sure). This wonderful novel, the many interesting and authentic characters accompanied me through months. When I finally finished the book, I really started missing the persons.
Seth's novel is unique written. I became curious about it, and finally bought it, because wonderful author Sharon Maas (Of Marriageable Age) told at her homepage that she loves Seth's book.
I have to say, this is not just a novel. It is a journey. The characters not only accompanied me, I also accompanied them. It was interesting to see them grow in such an authentic way. First I could not understand Lata's decision in the end, but after thinking about it, it was the right decision for her.
I have never read a book telling about the lifes of so many people. It was such a great experience. Each person was described wonderful and I was looking forward to each storyline.
The novel not only tells about realistic characters, also about the Indian culture, history and politics. The last one was maybe a bit too much presented, but that is a matter of taste. Politics were so important to understand the background of some of the storylines, so they could not have missed.
After writing so much I only have to say: If you love authentic family sagas and India you really have to read this novel. Let Mrs. Rupa Mehra, Maan, Lata, Malati, Firoz and the many others in your life!

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Sister Of My Heart

Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite these differences, since the day the two girls were born—the same day their fathers died, mysteriously and violently—Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates, as well as their hearts, are merged.
When Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is threatened. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust—Sudha, because she feels a new shame that she cannot share with Anju; and Anju, because she discovers the seductive power of her sister’s beauty, a power Sudha herself is incapable of controlling. When, due to a change in family fortune, the girls are urged into arranged marriages, their lives take opposite turns. One travels to America, and one remains in India; both have lives of secrets. When tragedy strikes both of them, however, they discover that, despite distance and marriage, they must turn to each other once again.

A real good novel with authentic characters and a very interesting storyline. In my opinion this is the best book of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni I have ever read.
But the author should have ended the wonderful story after this first book. The ending was kind of open, but it was a good and realistic ending although.

Sharon Maas - Of Marriageable Age

An orphan boy adopted by an English doctor, living near Madras, in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu: Nataraj.
A headstrong teenager, daughter of an Indian lawyer in Georgetown, British Guiana: Sarojini.
Back in Madras, earlier, a cook's daughter, of Brahmin descent but a servant girl in an affluent English family: Savitri.
And a cast of colorful supporting characters: a strong-minded but utterly fallible and therefore most ‘human’ father; several brothers, one mean-spirited, one good-natured but weak, and another one, in another family, loving and mischievous; a willful girlfriend with a penchant for the arts; a mother at times more feminist politician than mom; a busybody mother with a constant need to organize, control and meddle; and last but not least, a wise and patient teacher.
Sprinkle this mixture generously with compassion, humor, love in all its incarnations and that profound understanding of the Indian society which only comes from personal experience; then add the author's personal secret touch.
These are the ingredients of the literary feast offered to the reader in Sharon Maas's debut novel Of Marriageable Age, bringing together the imaginative powers of a born storyteller with a lifetime's worth of personal experience. And like an Indian meal, her novel is rich in flavors, slowly and skillfully blending a myriad of exquisite parts into a perfectly tempered composition, leaving enough room for each ingredient to develop its full perfume while at the same time creating a new, perfectly composed oeuvre of its own.

This wonderful, unique book was one of the best, and probably even the best, I have ever read. The author has an incredible and incomparable writting style, the characters of the novel are authentic and wonderful described.