I don’t know about all of you, but I’m getting burned out on vampires and werewolves. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have time for a particular delicious blood-sucking male, but I’m starting to feel about them the way I feel about chick lit these days: it had better be really fresh for me to go there. Case in point: I’m loving Christine Feehan’s Game series: books about men and women with various enhanced powers. But they’re definitely human. In short, I love paranormal, I’m just finding I like my men less hair and less toothy than seems to be the style.
I was enchanted to discover Anjali Banerjee’s Invisible Lives because it combines two genres I’ve pretty much stopped reading, and does it in a fascinating way. It’s chick lit and yet not chick lit. And the heroine has a paranormal twist in that she’s able to read minds, and yet she doesn’t grow hair or howl at the moon.
Invisible Lives is the story of Lakshmi Sen, who has born with the ability to actually see the secret longings of those around her. She can catch pictures of their secret dreams. And she has a more nebulous ability to see exactly which sari they should be wearing. Lakshmi works in her mother’s sari store, Mystic Elegance, and she’s in charge of choosing saris for customers, which she does brilliantly. I loved all the details of the saris. Never having worn one, I had no idea they were so delicious. I think we read paranormal for a glimpse of another world. To someone like me, brought up on a Minnesota farm, this book has all the charm of a paranormal doubled.
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The world is my sari, the sari my world. I wrap myself in the comfort of fragrant fabric, surround myself daily with the variety and subtlety of silk. I see golden brocade borders flapping in the sky, embedded in wisps of cloud. While a stranger might discern only the surface of organza, cotton, or chiffon, I hear the sigh of love, smell the thick smoke in Kolkata streets. I hear the calls of a street vendor, the squeak of a ricksaw. If you look closely enough at a woven sari border, you’ll catch a woman’s history. She uses her pallu as a pocket for keys, to shield her face from pollution or from the advances of men. She plays with the fabric to be coy, lets her husband unravel the cloth in the privacy of their bedroom. |
Lakshmi is facing a big decision: her mother has arranged a marriage for her with a guy who’s actually really nice. Decent. Handsome. Rich. But then there’s the chauffeur for a movie star who comes into the store, Nick. When he’s around Lakshmi loses her knowing (for anyone who’s read and loved Katherine Kingsley’s novels, this was a dead give-away). He’s white: “His blond hair is long, parted on the side, and he’s tall, broad-shouldered, large as a quarterback. His eyes are the blue of hard-cut gems.”
Need I continue? It’s a delicious paranormal romance that spins a web of saris and romance.
Julia Quinn and I are splitting the book club on the BB between us, so this is her month (but I’ll be checking in there for sure). Next month, the Pillow Talk will be on Loretta Chase’s Not Quite a Lady ?and Loretta will join us from May 15-30. Don’t miss it!
-Eloisa
