Monsoon Summer
Kit Smallwood has just arrived at Wickham Farm in Oxfordshire, where a friend is founding a charity to send midwives to the Moonstone Home in South India. It is 1947; Kit is suffering from nervous exhaustion from her time nursing soldiers during the Second World War and also harbors a secret that is weighing on her conscience. While at Wickham Farm assisting with her friend’s charity, she meets Anto, an Indian doctor rooming in the same house. He is in England finishing his medical training, and he also begins to assist Kit and her friend with their work. It does not take long, however, for business to turn to pleasure for Kit and Anto, and soon they are consumed by their love for one another.
The story takes the couple from England to South India, where Kit is sent to work at the Moonstone Home. Anto’s family conveniently lives in the same village, so he is able to present Kit to them as his wife. There is inevitably culture shock by both Kit and Anto’s family as they try to grow accustomed to one another’s experiences and beliefs.
This story is almost 500 pages long but reads quickly and enjoyably. Gregson writes about India in a way that brings the country alive for me, someone who has never visited. This is not to say that she writes about the country with rose-colored glasses. Rather, she writes with a great deal of expertise, allowing room for the nastiness of the political issues that occurred that year during the Partition of India. It’s more a love for country and a passion for one’s work than anything else. These are complex, well-rounded characters.
I highly recommend this engrossing read for those interested in romance novels or even those (such as myself) who are not.
