The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi – 384 pages 

ARC provided by Mira Books for an honest review

Book Blurb:

It’s the spring of 1969, and Lakshmi, now married to Dr. Jay Kumar, directs the Healing Garden in Shimla. Malik has finished his private school education. At twenty, he has just met a young woman named Nimmi when he leaves to apprentice at the Facilities Office of the Jaipur Royal Palace. Their latest project: a state-of-the-art cinema.
Malik soon finds that not much has changed as he navigates the Pink City of his childhood. Power and money still move seamlessly among the wealthy class, and favors flow from Jaipur’s Royal Palace, but only if certain secrets remain buried. When the cinema’s balcony tragically collapses on opening night, blame is placed where it is convenient. But Malik suspects something far darker and sets out to uncover the truth. As a former street child, he always knew to keep his own counsel; it’s a lesson that will serve him as he untangles a web of lies.

My Review: 4 stars

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The Secret Keeper of Jaipur was the sequel to Joshi’s stellar debut The Henna Artist. I was thrilled to revisit these characters and delve more into Malik’s story. The story picks up years after the first book when Malik has finished his schooling and sent, by Lakshimi, to work with her architect friend in Jaipur. 

This book starts with the collapse of a building, which was crazy based on the timing in which I read this book. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around how a building could collapse and then shockingly, two days later, the horrific collapse of the building in Miami happened. What a maddening and sad coincidence. 

I do enjoy when a book starts with a life-altering event (good or bad), and then the story follows with everything that leads up to said event. Joshi did a good job with this way of storytelling. The reader was able to see all the moving parts and what every character was doing and learning up until the collapse. This book had a lot of characters from her first book and also many new ones. I was not a fan of Malik’s love interest, Nimmi, probably because of her distaste for Lakshimi, who is a beloved character from the first book. I also didn’t feel the connection between Malik and Nimmi as I felt there was more telling and less showing regarding their relationship. Often, certain thoughts, or bits of info, were placed in parenthesis as a follow-up to the aforementioned sentence. I’ve noticed this in a few other summer reads and I just don’t understand it. If there are authors reading this, please do tell!

Sequels are never easy to pull off, especially because they often need to be written as a stand-alone book as well. This one was done well, but maybe tried to include too much: the drug smuggling, the jewelry business, the medicinal plants, the collapse of the building, the infidelities, the sheep herding, etc. Overall, I enjoyed this story, and surprisingly loved the descriptions and education I got regarding the material used in building.