I’ve met the lovely Ritu Bhathal a few times and admire her writing. She creates authentic characters you can’t help but feel are part of the family. I read the first book in her Rishtay Series and loved it and was delighted to hear she’d written another three. I devoured the second book, Straight as a Jalebi, recently. Here’s the blurb:
Who knew that an innocent trip to India in the year 2000 would have such an impact on his life?
Sunny had only gone as a chaperone for his sister and her best friend and to attend to a few business matters.
He’d ended up with a deal that would change the shape of his professional future and possibly his personal one too.
Battling the pressures of marriage by his family isn’t Sunny’s only fight, as he finds his feelings for a certain ‘friend’ may be more than just friendship.
But how can he tell anyone how he truly feels?
Because the road to love isn’t always straight…
My review:
Having read the first book in the series, Marriage Unarranged, it was great to be reunited with the Gill family. The second book focuses on Sunny and the issues he’s facing. I think the author deals with difficult subjects, such as arranged marriage, religion, gay relationships, the expectations of family and age-old traditions so well. She doesn’t shy away from them and embraces them whilst endearing the characters to us.
The book pulls you along, with plenty of twists and turns, and you really don’t know how things are going to end.
I thoroughly recommend Straight as a Jalebi and am looking forward to book three, In God’s Hands.
Author bio:
Ritu Bhathal was born in Birmingham in the mid-1970s to migrant parents, hailing from Kenya but with Indian origin. This colourful background has been a constant source of inspiration to her.
From childhood, she always enjoyed reading. This love of books is credited to her mother. The joy of reading spurred her on to become creative in her writing, from fiction to poetry. Winning little writing competitions at school and locally encouraged her to continue writing.
As a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and teacher, she has drawn on inspiration from many avenues to create the poems that she writes.
A qualified teacher, having studied at Kingston University, she now deals with classes of children as a sideline to her writing!
Ritu also writes a blog, http://www.butismileanyway.com, a mixture of life and creativity, thoughts and opinions, which was awarded first place in the Best Overall Blog category at the 2017 Annual Bloggers Bash Awards, and Best Book Blog in 2019.
Ritu is happily married and living in Kent, with her Hubby Dearest, and two children, not forgetting the fur baby Sonu Singh.
Esther Chilton 
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