My Review:

Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

To read reviews, please visit Sejal Badani's page on iRead Book Tours.



​A former attorney, Sejal Badani left the law to pursue writing full time.

She is a USA Today, Washington Post & Amazon Charts bestselling author, Goodreads Fiction Award Finalist and ABC/DISNEY Writing Fellowship Finalist.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ​~ Pinterest ~ Instagram

Book Details:

Book Title: From An-Other Land by Tanushree Ghosh
Category: Adult Fiction, 224 pages
Genre: Short Stories, Immigrant Stories, Literary
Publisher: Readomania Publishing
Release date: December 4, 2018
Tour dates: March 18 to April 5, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (It has mature themes in the backdrop in some stories, but doesn't have explicit language or description)

Book Description:

Never has been the conversation on immigration more pertinent than now, post 2016 US elections. From cancellation of refugee protection and zero tolerance to undercurrent crackdown on H visas to the border wall - the resurgence of nationalism is hitting the globalized population head-on.

But what is immigration today? A question of life or death - fleeing of persecution? A compulsion? Or a mere pursuance of privilege? And what is the US today? A land of opportunities? Or a quagmire impossible to comprehend, inherently racist and selfish?

From An-Other Land dives deep into immigration today for the diaspora and its many facets with characters who seek to define themselves in an intercultural setting that is less and less sure of itself. A reality check and a guide for anyone who wants to understand the modern-day US.


I love immigrant stories, hence the reason I wanted to read this book. Tanushree Ghosh has written a variety of short stories under the theme of immigration from India to the United States. Each story drew me in immediately with compelling characters, unique situations and the challenges of bicultural identities. Well-written and insightful, From An-Other Land gives the reader an intimate look at the Indian culture and immigration through the lens of an author who herself immigrated but fourteen years ago.

I couldn't help think that although I loved reading these stories, they were inherently sad, some even heartbreaking. It's true that the journey of immigration is one fraught with challenges, sacrifices, and nostalgia of one's homeland, and these stories realistically portray all of these aspects, however, I did miss the hopeful tone I was expecting from them. Some of the stories are interconnected and by the end, we get a picture of how immigration affects each person in different ways as they each search for a dream that for many remains elusive.

These stories are literary fiction that would appeal to all who love immigrant Indian stories that are thought-provoking and perspicacious.

To read reviews, please follow Tanushree Ghosh's page on iRead Book Tours.

​

Meet the Author:

Tanushree Ghosh works in Tech and has a Doctorate in Chemistry from the Cornell University. She is also a social activist and writer. Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are an effort to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women and social justice.

She is a contributor (past and present) to several popular e-zines (incl. The Huffington Post US, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tribune India, Women’s Web, and Cafe Dissensus). Her literary resume includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines (Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train Honorable mention) as well as inclusion in seven anthologies such as Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). Her first single-author book, From An-Other Land, is on immigration.

She has held different leadership roles in non-profits (ASHA and AID India) and is the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality. She is often an invited speaker or panelist for both corporate and non-profit endeavors.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook
a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Journey to Yonder is a young girl's coming-of-age story growing up in India. It is a beautiful narrative that reads like a memoir, scattered with poems. Read my review and enter to win a copy!

My Review:

Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

Buy the Book:

Amazon ~ Book Depository ~ Barnes & Noble

Books-a-Million

Add to Goodreads

Meet the Author:

Unforgettable, heartbreaking and hopeful...this one is a stunning debut from author Amita Trasi!

Purchase Links:

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About the Author:

Amita Trasi was born and raised in Mumbai, India. She has an MBA in human resource management, and currently lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and two cats.

Find out more about Amita at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I'm super excited to be kicking off the blog tour for Debra Schoenberger's third photography book! Each book she published is unique and I have enjoyed them all, but she really captured a side to India I have never seen with this latest release. Debra traveled with a guide from National Geographic Journeys and was able to go places a tourist normally would not go or have access to. Check out my review of INDIA and my interview with Debra. And be sure to enter the giveaway for a chance to win a book.

My Review:

Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

LCR: Hi Debra! Congratulations on publishing your third photographing book. Can you describe your book INDIA in 20 words or less?

DS: A street photographer’s pursuit to capture the heart and soul of India.

LCR: You've been to India several times. What made this trip different?

DS: I was able to really “dig deeper” into Indian culture and history. I travelled on practically every form of transportation there is in India!

LCR: You took this trip with National Geographic Journeys. Tell us what that was like.

DS: The advantage of travelling with a guide from National Geographic Journeys was being able to go places a tourist normally would not go or have access to. We were able to enjoy a cooking lesson with a royal family in Jaipur and visit the Taj Mahal before sunrise when there were no other people. We also went to a Bollywood movie in a theatre which was really quite an eye-opening experience! I never saw and heard so many fans cheer for their favourite hero!



LCR: What do you love the most about India?

DS: The colours / the constant movement around you / unpredictability of not knowing what comes next

LCR: What do you dislike about India?

DS: There is very little effort to protect the environment. Garbage is strewn everywhere and rivers are polluted and filled with it. The country is very polluted due to smoke from industry and burning garbage. When I was in Delhi the pollution had reached critical levels due, in part, to the Diwali celebrations and slash burning in the Punjab.

LCR: If you could travel to the past, where would you go and why?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

In 2011, I read and reviewed Secret Daughter, Shilpa Somaya Gowda's debut book. I loved it and wondered if The Golden Son would live up to her first novel. Let's just say that I flew through the pages of this one and was immediately drawn in from the first page. 

Title: The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Publisher: William Morrow 

Published: November 29, 2016
Paperback: 432 pages
Content Rating: PG-13 (For scenes of domestic violence and abuse)

Book Description:

The New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Secret Daughter returns with an unforgettable story of family, responsibility, love, honor, tradition, and identity, in which two childhood friends—a young doctor and a newly married bride—must balance the expectations of their culture and their families with the desires of their own hearts.

The first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the busiest and most competitive hospitals in America. When his father dies, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village’s disputes. But he is uneasy with the custom, uncertain that he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather. His doubts are compounded by the difficulties he discovers in adjusting to a new culture and a new job, challenges that will shake his confidence in himself and his abilities.

Back home in India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena’s romantic hopes, and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more—changing them both and the people they love forever.

Tender and bittersweet, The Golden Son illuminates the ambivalence of people caught between past and present, tradition and modernity, duty and choice; the push and pull of living in two cultures, and the painful decisions we must make to find our true selves.

Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

In 2011, I read and reviewed Secret Daughter, Shilpa Somaya Gowda's debut book. I loved it and wondered if The Golden Son would live up to her first novel. Let's just say that I flew through the pages of this one and was immediately drawn in from the first page. This is a novel rich in characterization and culture, filled with gems of wisdom and depth.

The novel is the story of Anil Patel, the elder son of a respected family in a village of India, who decides to become a doctor and pursue his medical residency in Dallas, Texas at one of the best known hospitals in America. Anil experiences immigrant issues--new culture and attitudes, prejudice, modernized lifestyle and the wonder of modern medicine. He learns some tough lessons all while juggling the traditions of his own culture and family.

This is also the story of Leena, a close childhood friend of Anil who lives in Anil's village in India and who eventually gets married and experiences abuse at the hand of her husband's family. At some point Anil and Leena's life reconnect and their life lessons will combine to bring about positive change and healing for both their families.

I simply loved how the author was able to seamlessly intertwine the Indian and American cultures and the struggle to find one's identity when part of both cultures. The lush descriptions of the Indian village and farmlands, its people and their lives shone through as equally as did the adrenaline rush of the exhilarating but exhaustive medical residency in a big hospital of a modern metropolis.

It is evident that Gowda understood and researched both settings and cultures well. The unspoken but understood ways of doing things in the small Indian village, especially when it came to arranged marriages and dowries versus the medical jargon and competitive nature of the residency were clear evidence of her extensive research. It is these subtle but powerful bits of information that makes this novel so good, so satisfying to read, and such a pleasure for info junkies like me. I love learning new things as I read.

Well-written, evocative, emotional and exotic, The Golden Son is the second book from Gowda that will once again capture not only readers who loved her first book, but anyone who loves to read literary fiction rich in culture and characterization. This book has made it to my Best Reads of 2016 list.

To read more reviews, visit Shilpi Somaya Gowda's page on TLC Book Tours.

Disclosure: Thanks to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for sending me this book for review. I was not compensated in any other way, nor told how to rate or review this product.






Shilpi Somaya Gowda was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain scholar. She lives in California with her husband and children.

Find out more about Shilpi at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.