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#BookReview The Morning Star by Gita V. Reddy @RandomTTours

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The Morning Star - BT Poster

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Morning Star by Gita V. Reddy. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to the author for my digital review copy.

The Morning Star by Gita V. ReddyAbout the Book

Anything is possible if fate wills it.

A desperate woman calls a neighbour before dying in childbirth. Is it a coincidence that she chooses someone who will give her all to save the baby from its unscrupulous father?

When Sudha answers a telephone call in the middle of the night, she cannot know how it will change her life. From the first, she feels a strong connection with the motherless baby. She brings her home and names her after the Arundhati star. Sudha loves Arundhati – Anu as she calls her – as much as she does her son. She is the daughter of her heart, a precious gift that fate has given her. As the threat to Anu’s safety increases, she grows desperate and takes a drastic step to protect the baby.

Only, it might cost her everything she holds dear…

Format: Paperback (329 pages)          Publisher:
Publication date: 30th August 2020  Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Find The Morning Star on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK
*Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Having previously read the author’s two short story collections, Happiness Is A Collage and A Tapestry Of Tears, I was intrigued at the prospect of experiencing her writing in novel length form. Even more so since I also enjoyed her book, Outside the Magic Circle, exploring the private life of Charles Dickens and revealing his cruel treatment of his wife Catherine, mother of his children.

Described as “a story of love, sacrifice and the unseen hand of destiny”, The Morning Star takes the reader on an emotional – and literal – journey as Sudha attempts to fulfil her neighbour Prerna’s dying wish that she keep her newborn daughter safe from Prerna’s alcoholic husband. Sudha soon finds herself forced to choose between respecting the wishes of her husband Vinay, her responsibilities for her young son Raghu and her sincere conviction that destiny has chosen her to be the protector of the baby she names Arundhati. Her choice sets her on a path that jeopardizes her marriage, forces her to venture outside the relatively enclosed life she has led so far, and brings challenges and risks she can never have imagined.

Although Sudha’s actions may appear rash, even naïve at times, they are clearly motivated by her love for Arundhati, the daughter she would have loved to have, and by her own experiences as a child. This makes her a very sympathetic character. And I’m sure I’m not the only reader to give a little cheer the first time she, in her words, “stands her ground”, answering back to yet another mean comment from her cousin Lavanya.

A chance encounter on a train journey results in an unlikely friendship which brings Sudha (who is somewhat of an innocent abroad, at one point describing herself as “a boat without oars in a fast-moving river”) much needed practical help. It also leads to Sudha and Arundhati finding an unexpected refuge as well as a source of love and support, just at the moment they need it most.

The novel’s references to smartphones, Instagram and Netflix place it very much in the here and now, even more so as the author very cleverly weaves current world events into the storyline. However, as in her previous books, the central story is accompanied by fascinating insights into Indian culture, religious belief and social customs. Oh, and delicious sounding food.

The Morning Star is a moving family drama set against the backdrop of modern day India. It will take you on an emotional journey, one you won’t want to forget for a while.

In three words: Emotional, touching, hopeful

Try something similar: The Borrowed Boy by Deborah Klee

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Gita Reddy Author PicAbout the Author

Gita V. Reddy lives in Hyderabad, India, with her husband and son. She writes fiction for both adults and children. Her books for children are written when she takes a break from writing for adults and vice versa. She enjoys thinking up tales in different genres and has written historical fiction, women’s fiction and has recently made a foray into Regency romance. For children, she has written mysteries, adventure tales, fantasy, science fiction and also a fable. In addition to writing, she is interested in art and has illustrated three picture books.

Gita Reddy also writes under the pen names of Heera Datta and Jessica Spencer (for Regency romance). Ms. Reddy is a postgraduate in Mathematics. In an earlier life, that she voluntarily quit in 2011, she was a senior manager in a bank. To know more about her and her writing journey, visit her website.

Connect with Gita
Website | Twitter

#WWWWednesday – 18th November 2020

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

A proof copy (which I have nearly finished, honestly!), an eARC, a book for Nonfiction November and a book for a blog tour. Phew!

The Push Ashley AudrainThe Push by Ashley Audrain (ARC, courtesy of Michael Joseph)

What if your experience of motherhood was nothing like what you hoped for – but everything you always feared?

‘The women in this family, we’re different…’

The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. It was meant to be a fresh start. But as soon as I held her in my arms I knew something wasn’t right. I have always known that the women in my family aren’t meant to be mothers.

My husband Fox says I’m imagining it. He tells me I’m nothing like my own mother, and that Violet is the sweetest child. But she’s different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I?

Blitz WritingBlitz Writing: Night Shift & It Was Different At The Time by Inez Holden (Handheld Press)

Emerging out of the 1940-1941 London Blitz, the drama of these two short works, a novel and a memoir, comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment.

Inez Holden’s novella Night Shift follows a largely working-class cast of characters for five night shifts in a factory that produces camera parts for war planes. It Was Different At The Time is Holden’s account of wartime life from April 1938 to August 1941, drawn from her own diary. This was intended to be a joint project written with her friend George Orwell (he was in the end too busy to contribute), and includes disguised appearances of Orwell and other notable literary figures of the period.

The experiences recorded in It Was Different At The Time overlap in period and subject with Night Shift, setting up a vibrant dialogue between the two texts.

CesareCesare by Jerome Charyn (eARC, courtesy of No Exit via NetGalley)

On a windy night in 1937, a seventeen-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him ‘Cesare’ after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr’s enemies.

Canaris is a man of contradictions who, while serving the regime, seeks to undermine the Nazis and helps Cesare hide Berlin’s Jews from the Gestapo. But the Nazis will lure many to Theresienstadt, a phony paradise in Czechoslovakia with sham restaurants, novelty shops, and bakeries, a cruel ghetto and way station to Auschwitz. When the woman Cesare loves, a member of the Jewish underground, is captured and sent there, Cesare must find a way to rescue her.

41LJmNqMVVL._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_The Morning Star by Gita V. Reddy (ebook, courtesy of the author)

A desperate woman calls a neighbor before dying in childbirth. Is it a coincidence that she chooses someone who will give her all to save the baby from its unscrupulous father?

When Sudha answers a telephone call in the middle of the night, she cannot know how it will change her life. From the first, she feels a strong connection with the motherless baby. She brings her home and names her after the Arundhati star.

Sudha loves Arundhati – Anu as she calls her – as much as she does her son. She is the daughter of her heart, a precious gift that fate has given her. As the threat to Anu’s safety increases, she grows desperate and takes a drastic step to protect the baby.

Only, it might cost her everything she holds dear…

Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my reviews

How To Belong by Sarah Franklin

The Stasi Game (Karin Müller #6) by David Young

The House in the Hollow by Allie Cresswell

Three Women and a Boat by Anne Youngson (eARC, courtesy of Doubleday via NetGalley)

Meet Eve, who has departed from her thirty-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia: defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller, suddenly vulnerable as she awaits a life-saving operation.

Inexperienced and ill-equipped, Sally and Eve embark upon a journey through the canals of England, guided by the remote and unsympathetic Anastasia. As they glide gently – and not so gently – through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of canal boat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds.

Disarmingly truthful and narrated with a rare, surprising wit, Three Women and A Boat is a journey over the glorious waterways of England and into the unfathomable depths of the human heart. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

20201022_155547337 by M. Jonathan Lee (proof copy, courtesy of Hideaway Fall) 

337 follows the life of Samuel Darte whose mother vanished when he was in his teens. It was his brother, Tom who found her wedding ring on the kitchen table along with the note. While their father pays the price of his mother’s disappearance, Sam learns that his long-estranged Gramma is living out her last days in a nursing home nearby.

Keen to learn about what really happened that day and realising the importance of how little time there is, he visits her to finally get the truth. Soon it’ll be too late and the family secrets will be lost forever. Reduced to ashes. But in a story like this, nothing is as it seems.