Teatime for the Firefly

By Shona Patel,

Book cover of Teatime for the Firefly

Book description

For fans of Alka Joshi’s The Henna Artist, comes a compelling love story set against a culture grounded in tradition, about to be changed forever in the onslaught of WWII.

My name is Layla and I was born under an unlucky star. For a young girl growing up in India,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Teatime for the Firefly as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Set in 1940s India in the lead up to Independence, the backdrop is the rarely written about North-East India. The protagonists; Layla, (well-educated and independently-minded) and Manik (a free-thinker with a sense of adventure) are an unusual couple for the core romance but his work takes them to the remote tea plantations of Assam. I have written about the tea gardens in my India Tea Series, but largely from a British and Anglo-Indian point of view. Patel’s vivid depiction of this way of life is informed by her own upbringing, as the daughter of tea planters. It’s rich in detail…

From Janet's list on the British in India.

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