From the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist, this sweeping novel of identity and self-discovery takes readers from 1937 Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter's death.
When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and her nurse, Sona, is excited to learn more about the vivacious artist who shares her half-Indian identity. Sona, yearning for a larger life, finds herself carried away by Mira's stories of her travels and exploits and is shocked by accounts of the many lovers the painter has left scattered throughout Europe. When Mira dies quite suddenly and mysteriously, Sona falls under suspicion, and her quiet life is upended.
The key to proving Sona's innocence may lie in a cryptic note and four paintings Mira left in her care, sending the young woman on a mission to visit the painter's former friends and lovers across a tumultuous Europe teetering toward war. On the precipice of discovering her own identity, Sona learns that the painter's charming facade hid a far more complicated, troubled soul.
In her first stand-alone novel since her bestselling debut, The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi uses the life of painter Amrita Sher-Gil, the 'Frida Kahlo of India', as inspiration for the story's beginning to explore how far we'll travel to determine where we truly belong.
Alka Joshi is the internationally bestselling author of the Jaipur Trilogy, which includes The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur and The Perfumist of Paris. Her debut novel, The Henna Artist, was a New York Times Bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub Pick, an LA Times Bestseller, a Toronto Star Bestseller, a Cosmopolitan Best Audiobook, and an Amazon favorite. It was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and has been translated into 29 languages. It’s currently in development at Netflix as an episodic series. In 2023, Forbes selected Alka as one of 50 Women Over 50 who are shattering age and gender norms across cultures. Alka was born in India and came to the U.S. with her family at the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts.
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