#Sujata Massey

[abookishshade]

So January, 2024 was a productive reading month for me.

I read 7 books in all, of which, I read:

🔹️2 audiobooks

1️⃣▫️The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eyn, tr. Lizzie Buehler- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (lit fic, thriller, contemporary)

I had not known about this aspect of the tourism industry before reading this book. So it was quite fascinating to me.

2️⃣▫️All Systems Red by Martha Wells- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Sci-fi)

This is, I think, the first pure sci-fi that I have read, and I enjoyed being inside the head of a robot.

🔹️1 series continuation

3️⃣▫️Sweep of the Heart by Ilona Andrews- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (fantasy, romance)

Finally I'm done with the Innkeeper Chronicles. While this was still a comfort read, it was also a slow read. There was a lot of political intrigue involving characters I didn't much care for so this one wasn't as fun as the previous books in the series.

🔹️2 rereads

4️⃣▫️The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (middle grade, greek mythology, urban fanasy)

It was also my first read of the month. The recently released show got me interested in this again. I have made another post on it.

5️⃣▫️The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (middle grade, greek mythology, urban fanasy)

It was also as much fun as the first Percy Jackson book, especially because I have forgotten everything from my first read. Came across the character Circe in this one, and couldn't help myself from wanting to know her pov next before starting the 3rd book in the series.

🔹️2 fresh reads

6️⃣▫️Circe by Madeline Miller- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (greek mythology, feminist retelling)

The Sea of Monsters made me want to read Circe. And this was my favorite read of the month. I loved the character development of Circe. I loved the witchy vibes. I loved the depiction of her solitary independent life on the island. I loved the critiques of patriarchy. What I didn't like was the ending.

SPOILER AHEAD

I understood Circe's loneliness but I didn't like that the powerful witch Circe ended up needing to spend her mortal life with Telemachus and bear his children to get her happy ending.

SPOILER OVER

7️⃣▫️The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (historical fiction, mystery)

I buddyread this one, and enjoyed reading it even though it was a slow read. Buddyread definitely helped in going through with it. There were two timelines. Sometimes the transition from one timeline to another felt like an interruption but at the end both the timelines added to the substance of the story, especially the past timeline was important for the characterization of our protagonist. I loved the various little details including those pertaining to the setting, the law and the architecture and also those pertaining to the various characters and their dynamics with each other. I also enjoying making speculations about the killer. I also liked how it touched upon some of the societal issues of the time period through the lens of a woman.

[thisbibliophiile]

I forgot this was coming out today!!!!!

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"The Satapur Moonstone (A Perveen Mistry Novel)" by Sujata Massey book recommendation by Rachel Sylvan

[lifeaholiclady27]

The Satapur Moonstone - The Second Perveen Mistry Installment with a Feisty Solicitor and Royal Curses

The second installment of Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry Investigates. ‘The Satapur Moonstone’ continues the adventures of Bombay’s first female (albeit fictitious) lawyer Perveen Mistry as she entangles the court intrigues in Satapur, a tiny princely state embedded in the Western Ghats. The Perveen Mistry Series Royalty, Cursed Jewels and Lawyers Just like the first book, we see Perveen…

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Mistress of Bhatia House | Author: Sujata Massey | Publisher: Soho Crime (2023)

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌸 Books for AAPI Month

❤️ Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with this list featuring some of the FEW empowering, vibrant stories written by AAPI authors or starring AAPI protagonists.

🌸 What books did you read for AAPI month?

✨ 2024 Releases ❤️ Night for Day - Roselle Lim 🌸 The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years - Shubnum Khan 🏮The Great Reclamation - Rachel Heng ❤️ Lies and Weddings - Kevin Kwan 🌸 Valley Verified - Kyla Zhao 🏮 The Catch - Amy Lea ❤️ Your Utopia - Bora Chung 🌸 Tehrangeles - Porochista Khakpour 🏮 Horse Barbie - Geena Rocero ❤️ Memory Piece - Lisa Ko 🌸 The Fetishist - Katherine Min 🏮 Real Americans - Rachel Khong ❤️ The Kamogawa Food Detectives - Hisashi Kashiwai 🌸 Manila Takes Manhattan - Carla de Guzman 🏮 The Last Phi Hunter - Salinee Goldenberg and Ilya Nazarov ❤️ May the Best Player Win - Kyla Zhao 🌸 Are You Nobody Too? - Tina Cane 🏮 The Design of Us - Sajni Patel ❤️ Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum 🌸 Heir - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Maya's Laws of Love - Alina Khawaj ❤️ Midnights with You - Clare Osongco 🌸 Vilest Things - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Place is Magic - Irene Te ❤️ Guilt and Ginataan - Mia P. Manansal 🌸 Icon and Inferno - Marie Lu 🏮 Calling of Light - Lori M. Lee ❤️ Bite Me, Royce Taslim - Lauren Ho 🌸 Rules for Rule Breaking - Talia Tucker 🏮 What's Eating Jackie Oh? - Patricia Park ❤️ How to End a Love Story - Yulin Kuang 🌸 Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White - Amélie Wen Zhao 🏮 This Is How You Fall in Love - Anika Hussain ❤️ Just Playing House - Farah Heron 🌸 The Boyfriend Wish - Swati Teerdhala 🏮 A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal

✨ Romance ❤️ Dating Dr. Dil - Nisha Sharma 🌸 King of Wrath - Ana Huang 🏮 The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang ❤️ Girl Gone Viral - Alisha Rai 🌸 Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors - Sonali Dev 🏮 Role Playing - Cathy Yardley ❤️ The Hurricane Wars - Thea Guanzon 🌸 Ayesha at Last - Uzma Jalaluddin

✨ Fantasy ❤️ She Who Became the Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan 🌸 Babel - R.F. Kuang 🏮 Daughter of the Moon Goddess - Sue Lynn Tan ❤️ The Deep Sky - Yume Kitasei 🌸 The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri 🏮 Kaikeyi - Vaishnavi Patel ❤️ Light from Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki 🌸 Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

✨ Mystery ❤️ Arsenic and Adobo - Mia P. Manansala 🌸 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Q. Sutanto 🏮 The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd ❤️ Miracle Creek - Angie Kim 🌸 A Disappearance in Fiji - Nilima Rao 🏮 The Leftover Woman - Jean Kwok ❤️ The Widows of Malabar Hill - Sujata Massey 🌸 Things We Do in the Dark - Jennifer Hillier

✨ Young Adult ❤️ The Wrath and the Dawn - Renée Ahdieh 🌸 All My Rage - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Forget Me Not - Alyson Derrick ❤️ Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar 🌸 These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Book Won't Burn - Samira Ahmed ❤️ American Betiya - Anuradha D. Rajurkar 🌸 Dragonfruit - Makiia Lucier

[thecornercoffeeshop]

what are some books you've been enjoying lately?

Tough one since I've read a lot of great books lately, but if I had to pick my favourites-

Fiction:

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey

Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Non Fiction:

The Cartiers by Francesca Cartier Brickell

Essentially Mira by Mira Kulkarni (founder of Forrest Essentials)

D.V. by Diana Vreeland

I also regularly update my Goodreads, which you can find here.

[minipliny]

Pliny's 5 second book reviews, The Satapur Moonstone, Sujata Massey.

Book 2 in a series of mysteries starring a female lawyer in pre Independence India, Perveen Mistry! in this one, Perveen is sent to speak to the royal women in purdah in a princely state to settle the question of a young prince's education, only for the question of whether his older brother's death was really a hunting accident to rear its ugly head.

We have court intrigue, we have mother in laws and daughter in laws not seeing eye to eye with a kingdom at stake, tiger attack forensics, suspected poison, court jesters, a mysterious dancing girl, a helpful (?) and attractive but still British local authority, and the excellent Perveen. The author drew on figures like Cornelia Sorabji to really capture the complexities of how Perveen has to operate in a world in her interlocking identities as Oxbridge trained lawyer, independence supporting Indian, and woman blazing her own path, but also Perveen is just super snarky and insightful and done with things and people. I love her. She is navigating the back end of her own messy divorce, she is treading carefully in society, she is having adventures in a palanquin.

[thisbibliomaniac]

Doth my eyes see book asks? 👀

25, 129, 134 please and thank you!

a book by your favourite author

I'm honestly not sure I have a favorite author anymore, but. The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

a book with beautiful prose

A Basket of Summer Fruit by Susanna Spurgeon

unreccomend any book you like!

The Attolia books. I'd like if tumblr as a whole could stop being wrong about them all the time 😌

[madmonkeysandrum-blog]

Indian cozies, they all happen to be historical as well. I need to read more cozies that are set in other places and the UK and the US. Also be nice to get my hands on a few audiobooks as well. The last one isn't set in India but the main character is an Indian police.

"The Bangalore Detectives Club" by Harini Nagendra "The Widows of Malabar Hill" by Sujata Massey "The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra" by Vaseem Khan "A Disappearance in Fiji" By Nilima Rao

[therealjambery]

3, 14, and 19 for the end of year ask game!

I already answered 3 and 19, but am ALWAYS happy to talk about books! Boy oh boy am I.

14. Favorite book you read this year: that's a tough call because I read a lot but I'll do my best.

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb - This book is absolutely stellar. It's a mystery/thriller about a music history professor who uncovers a shocking secret about the composer he's dedicated his life to studying.

Other good books I read this year:

Classic lit

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons - Historical satire that reads much more modern than its 1932 publication date.

Coming of Age

When We Were Magic, Sarah Gailey - Fiercely tender; I highly recommend anything Sarah writes.

Mystery

Lavender House, Lev AC Rosen - 1950s noir gay detective. I also recently read the sequel and it did not disappoint.

The Satapur Moonstone, Sujata Massey - Set in 1920s India, Perveen Mistry is Bombay's only female lawyer. She's a great character and I'm really enjoying learning more about Parsi culture and Indian politics during that time.

Sci Fi

Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott - Sweeping and personal, a stunning cast of characters. The audiobooks are great.

Fantasy

When the Angels Left the Old Country, Sacha Lamb - Delightful, Good Omens vibes but more Jewish.

Re-read

Witchmark, CL Polk - Gaslight fantasy romance. My ultimate comfort read.

[thisbibliophiile]

Books of 2023 #30

The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey

[rockislandadultreads]

Libby Spotlight: Popular Mysteries

Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea

The Girl of Sugar Beach is the most watched documentary in television history—a riveting, true-life mystery that unfolds over twelve weeks and centers on a fascinating question: Did Grace Sebold murder her boyfriend, Julian, while on a Spring Break vacation, or is she a victim of circumstance and poor police work? Grace has spent the last ten years in a St. Lucian prison, and reaches out to filmmaker Sidney Ryan in a last, desperate attempt to prove her innocence.

As Sidney begins researching, she uncovers startling evidence overlooked during the original investigation. Before the series even finishes filming, public outcry leads officials to reopen the case.

Delving into Grace's past, Sidney peels away layer after layer of deception. But as she edges closer to the real heart of the story, Sidney must decide if finding the truth is worth risking her newfound fame, her career... even her life.

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay

It's New Year's Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey, four teenagers working late at the store are attacked. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.

In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who's forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who's convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller who must delve into the secrets of both nights—stirring up memories of teen love and lies—to uncover the truth about murders on the night shift.

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey 

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's rights.

Mistry Law is handling the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen goes through the papers, she notices something strange: all three have signed over their inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forefeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious.

The Farid widows live in purdah: strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. It's her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that nobody is in further danger.

This is the first volume in the “Perveen Mistry” series.

The Lady in the Silver Cloud by David Handler

A 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud is a fantastically expensive car, especially in the pristine condition of the one owned by Muriel Cantrell. Living in a luxury apartment building on Central Park West, the delicate, sweet 75-year-old woman is a neighbor of Merilee Nash, the beautiful movie star, and Stuart Hoag, whose first book was a sensation but whose career crashed when he became involved with drugs and alcohol. Divorced ten years earlier, Hoagy has been welcomed back into Merilee's life and apartment.

Apparently universally beloved in her building, residents are shocked when Muriel is murdered after a Halloween party. No one takes it harder than her long-time chauffeur, Bullets Durmond, whose previous job was as an enforcer for the mob. Who in the world would want to harm the silver-haired lady whose major vices were buying shoes and Chanel suits (always in cash), and watching day-time soap operas?

Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD is called to investigate and again seeks help from his friend Hoagy who, along with his basset hound Lulu, has been an invaluable aide in the past. The investigation leads to the unexpected source of Muriel's wealth, the history of her early years as a hatcheck girl at the Copacabana, how her chauffeur came to be called Bullets, her desperate meth-head nephew, and her wealthy neighbors, who have secrets of their own.

This is the 13th volume in the “Stewart Hoag” series.

[nevinslibrary]

Mystery/Thriller Monday

A little background, NCIS: Hawai’i is an awesome show (hmm… I’ve done NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans, have to remember to do NCIS: Hawaiʻi). So, a mystery, set on Hawai’i. I’m all over that.

It’s about Leilani. She’s just returned to Kaua’i to run her family’s shave ice business. Then, she discovers a dead body, an up and coming pro surfer. Ooh, and, the last person to see him alive, yeah… Leilani’s father (he was the surfer’s coach). And, the two of them aren’t exactly on the best of terms either. Add to all that her needing to care for her ill Mom, her sisters, her grandmother, oh… and, there’s a boyfriend back in Seattle where she moved from. She is juggling a lot, and, has to figure out who actually killed the surfer so that her father isn’t put away for it.

Honestly, the plot and the characters were great in this book, but, my very favorite part was the setting. The physical parts of Hawai’i, as well as the culture was the most intriguing to me. And, it is a series. There’s a second book that looks just as interesting as this one, as it takes place during the pandemic when Hawai’i was basically shut to the rest of the world.

You may like this book If you Liked: The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey, Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala, or Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews

Iced in Paradise by Naomi Hirahara

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Bombay Prince | Author: Sujata Massey | Publisher: Soho Crime (2021)

[yetanotherramblingfangirl]

4, 14, 15, 18 for the year-end ask?

4. Favorite books read this year

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark.

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

Malice by Heather Walter

Monstress, Vol. 1-3 by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

14. Favorite m/f ship of the year

Carson x Hughes, Downton Abbey. I went into a fanfic reread deep dive.

Roslin x Adama, Battlestar Galactica. They are just forever my favorite.

15. Favorite f/f ship of the year

Brenda x Sharon, The Closer. This was also part of my fanfic reread deep dive.

Kerry Weaver x Susan Lewis, ER.

Barbara x Melissa, Abbott Elementary.

18. Fandom that you never expected to get into

NCIS. It all started when I was sick over summer break and watched 3 seasons in a week. Now suddenly I'm watching season 13 and I have no idea how I got here.