Six Days in Bombay

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"A sparkling travelogue and a poignant journey of self-discovery all in one. . . . Alka Joshi is simply the best!" Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Rose Code

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist, this sweeping novel of identity and self-discovery takes readers from Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London, to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter's death.

When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and her nurse, Sona, is excited to learn more about the vivacious artist who shares her half-Indian identity. Sona, yearning for a larger life, finds herself carried away by Mira's stories of her travels and exploits and is shocked by accounts of the many lovers the painter has left scattered throughout Europe. When Mira dies quite suddenly and mysteriously, Sona falls under suspicion, and her quiet life is upended. 

The key to proving Sona's innocence may lie in a cryptic note and four paintings Mira left in her care, sending the young woman on a mission to visit the painter's former friends and lovers across a tumultuous Europe teetering toward war. On the precipice of discovering her own identity, Sona learns that the painter's charming facade hid a far more complicated, troubled soul. 

In her first stand-alone novel since her bestselling debut, The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi uses the life of painter Amrita Sher-Gil, the "Frida Kahlo of India," as inspiration for the story's beginning to explore how far we'll travel to determine where we truly belong.

Reviews

"Six Days in Bombay is a sparkling travelogue and a poignant journey of self-discovery all in one. . . . Alka Joshi is simply the best!"Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Rose Code

Six Days in Bombay is more than a skillfully-told story of sudden friendship and mysterious death. It is the story of two women who embark on a journey to answer that thorny question: What are you Each straddling race, culture, and class, they search for belonging in a society that insists on clear definitions of identity and status. . . . Once again, Alka Joshi deftly slid my feet into the shoes of a protagonist of another time and place, and I was swept away. Susanne Pari, author of In the Time of Our History & The Fortune Catcher

Six Days in Bombay is a great adventure story. Starting in India, then taking us through the crumbling world of Europe in the late 1930s, its both big and intimate, a large canvas for a detailed portrait. Memorable, original, and thoroughly engaging, this is a tale of loss and learning and love. Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Author Bio

Born in India and raised in the U.S. since she was nine, Alka Joshi has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts. Joshi's debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a NYT bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick, was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, & is in development at Netflix as a TV series. The Secret Keeper of Jaipur (2021) and The Perfumist of Paris (2023) completed the Jaipur Trilogy. Her fourth novel, Six Days in Bombay, will be released in February 2025. She is currently working on her fifth novel. In 2024, Joshi was selected for the Forbes 50 over 50 List, celebrating women who are shattering age and gender norms across all sectors of the American economy and culture.