Letters from a close friend

♦ AMY SNOW (Quercus, Rs 499) by Tracy Rees is a strong debut by an author who won the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition. The novel opens in 1831 and follows the orphaned Amy, who was found in a snowdrift, in her quest to uncover the secret of her deceased friend and guardian, Aurelia Vennaway. Aurelia has left a complex trail of letters and clues for Amy to follow. These will lead her to the truth about their lives. Rees has done a fine job; the idea of having a treasure hunt at the heart of the narrative helped the themes of the book come full circle and gave the story some depth. She has also perfectly captured the atmosphere of an authentic 19th-century novel: there is a whiff of drama, melancholy and pathos, a romanticized depiction of the middle-class family, rake-ish lovers and a sense of place as a reflection of emotion and mood that will remind readers of the Brontës. It is easy to guess the ending as one reads, but the story itself is such a winner that this takes nothing away from the experience of reading the book. It is one which moves slowly, langorously, letting the reader soak up the atmosphere that the author has imagined.

♦ DIARY OF AN IMMIGRANT BRIDE (Jaico, Rs 325) by Nim Gholkar fails miserably in arousing any sympathy for the narrator of the story, Anjali Jathar. Anjali, a twenty-something woman from a middle-class family in suburban Mumbai, finds herself in Sydney after having married a divorced NRI named Ravi. Anyone familiar with such hackneyed tropes will guess the series of events even before they occur - Ravi turns out to be a negligent husband, thus sending his lonely wife into the arms of a lover. The lover in this instance is Jake Ellis, who is "charmed by Anjali's exoticism". Gholkar's language is lucid, but the story she weaves is so loose and boring that it becomes difficult to finish reading the book.

♦ THE COLABA CONSPIRACY (HarperCollins, Rs 299) by Surender Mohan Pathak is the first English translation of a Jeet Singh mystery, originally written in Hindi. It follows the shenanigans of the famous lock-picker, Jeet Singh, who is trying to prove that his former lover, Sushmita, and he are not responsible for the death of Sushmita's husband, Pursumal Changulani. Pathak succeeds in spinning an enjoyable tale, although it is not quite the "nerve-wracking whodunnit" that it claims to be.