A rather bland Bollywood romance: "Wish upon a Bollywood star" by Pamela Q. Fernandes - review

As I have many Indian clients I picked this book for its Indian setting.

Cultural setting
I was thinking it was written by an Indian writer but looking at the acknowledging at the end of the novel with all the English/American sounding names I wonder if it is not written by someone from Indian decent (she looks "Indian").

I very  much missed the 'coleur locale' (the local setting) in the book. It could easily have been situated in Hollywood. Yes there are some remarks towards India mostly in food and cloths. Other things are mentioned like the Shaadi trap without explanation. With a global pool of readers in mind a bit of background would certainly improve things. Like is a marriage between someone from Kerala (what has a big ethnic Christian population) and someone from the north be like a Norwegian marrying an Italian? Caste is mentioned once. What are the implications of that in this day and age?
I also wondered about the religion of the hero and heroine. The heroine has a first name that is here a Muslim name. But she is from Christian Kerala. What is Vir? I imagine Hindu as Punjab was devided in 1948.

I also remember the uproar of a few years ago when Richard Gere kissed a Bollywood actress. In this novel there is a lot of public signs of affection. Has things changed or is this American influence of the writer?

Plot
The plot starts off totally silly (not that unusual in romances). Vir makes a remark about women being only good for the bedroom and the heroine wants to put him in his place and puts an announcement in the newspaper he is engaged. Ok so far. But why use her own name? And not realising what effect that can have on her reputation while she is in pr, educated and 26? I mean that is rather stupid. What makes the book sound like one of those completely unrealistic 1970-ties romances.

Another down grade is that the novel has moments that it is utterly boring and repetitive. I cannot feel any attraction between those two than wanting to go hankypanky with each other. Yes a lot of romances are only about bedsport and that can be entertaining read but this writer is Christian and wants to write a "clean" novel and the only mention is that they are "melting" and that he touches her "peaks and valleys". No a romance story does not need bedsports. The whole attraction can be mentally. We all swoon over Pride and Prejudice do we not? But this is boring. The man is not a nice person and he is also not a pleasure if you know what I mean.

There is also a bit of a strange storyline about a friend. Is he a total jerk or has he repented? Why letting him in when the last time he almost forced himself on you?

This kind of romances I tend to give a 3 star as in "nothing special" but due to the many flaws it is a 2 star. However some changes might help to bring it on a higher level.  It might have been a one off and I saw the writer has another novel about Kuwait that sounds promising so I am borrowing that on Kindle Unlimited to have a more general idea about her writing-style.

• File Size: 379 KB
• Print Length: 146 pages
• Publisher: Inkspell Publishing (December 10, 2018)
• Publication Date: December 10, 2018
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

ARC read via Netgalley.