Steele yourself for this

The moment I received a review copy of this book I hastily covered it with a sheet of newspaper. Call me a snob, but I wouldn’t be caught dead with a book called Secrets And Sins. Fortunately, the book is not trashy like the title — it’s rather readable because Misra is a good story teller. 

If all the characters in Secrets And Sins were on Facebook, their relationship status would probably be, ‘It’s complicated’. Three marriages are covered, and infidelity runs through all. Now for the main plot: a beautiful, gregarious British Indian has a fling with a handsome, shy, Mumbai boy at Leeds University — she dumps him for a white lad because culturally she has more in common with him.

Many years later, the heroine becomes a prize-winning author, and the hero a Bollywood superstar. Both are in less than happy marriages and think about each other frequently. Then Fate, who evidently is tired of all this pointless pining, decides to throw them together at the Cannes Film Festival. Sparks fly and there are consequences to be dealt with.

The book is a page turner, but there are a few irritants: While the concept is meaty, the treatment is superficial. There are too many happy coincidences. And no electrifying confrontations at all because Misra plays benevolent god — her wayward characters are let off very lightly indeed. Not astonishing, perhaps, because in the acknowledgements page, Misra has thanked her publishers for treating her like “a potential Danielle Steele” — ah, so that’s where she’s headed!

And now for a spot of knuckle-rapping on the style: Misra is so sincere about creating a credible British born and bred heroine that she goes completely overboard with the Brit slang bit. What makes it all the more incongruous is that her sentence constructions are of the “Having being” school of Indian English.
So what if I didn’t love this book? Die-hard Bollywood and Steele fans will surely enjoy curling up with it on a  rainy day.