Jasmine wilts and fades! This historical romance intrigues!

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The Jasmine Wife: A sweeping epic historical romance novel for women by Jane Coverdale    
"Sara Archer, a good plain name for a good plain girl, though with her unusual colouring and high cheekbones she should have been a beauty."
Magical story of a young English woman, born in India during the time of the British Raj, and sent to family in England when her parents died.
A free thinker and member of a Female Emancipation group, Sara decides to marry Charles Fitzroy and return to India to the warmth she remembers, physically and psychologically. Her return to India is put off for months as her aunt falls seriously ill.
Unfortunately in India Sara finds herself in the middle of very uptight, narrow minded compatriots and having to "fit in" to a hidebound society she wants freedom from, who see the Indians and their culture as inferior and barbaric. This flies in the face of her memories and her emancipation thoughts.
Upon her arrival in Sara she meets the mysterious Ravi Sabran, a half French and half Indian gentleman, under distressing circumstances. This meeting will Place Sara on a life changing path, as if it were fated. It will challenge her, even as the man she married in England, dear Charles, reveals himself to be a racist prig, a cruel master and not at all what she expected. On the other hand Charles had expected that Sara, "despite her shortcomings", was a good choice "as a potential wife because he was sure she adored him, even though she did at times have an annoying habit of contradicting him on matters he felt she should know nothing about."
Memories and personal mysteries about her life before being sent as an orphan to England will also unravel for Sara.
Scents and sounds will lead the way. "Patchouli! ... no other perfume ... spoke the essence of India with as much power."
I enjoyed every minute of Sara's developing life's story. I could envision the colors, the sights and the smells. A well written exotic historical romance with just the right amount of tension and intrigue to keep me guessing.

 A Harper Impulse ARC via NetGalley

*****

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