Indian Raj Romance novels: Review of "A Jasmin Wife" by Jane Coverdale

A Jasmine Wife was the name for a British young woman in her full bloom who would follow her husband to India and then in a short time whiter away.

But Sara Archer is not new to India when she comes to join her husband there at the beginning of the 20th century. She was born in India but lost at a young age both parents and was raised in a rather loveless household of a paternal aunt and uncle. When a bachelor seems to be interested in her and who moreover is stationed in India she falls head of heels for him. But is it him or India she is in love with? In his case it seems he sees marriage more as advantages to his career.

Upon arrival in India she barges into half French - half Indian Ravi Sabran who keeps shocking the circles of polite British society in Madras by living in sin with the wife of an Indian Maharaja who ran from her husband and being filthy rich and a bit of a bandit and who keeps ignoring the fact that the British matrons cannot overlook his Indian ancestry.

The British in Madras are more old fashioned and stuck in the Victorian times as what she experienced in England and are showing not the best characters. For instance when the local Maharadja visits they all try to get jewels off him by praising them.

In India Sara starts looking for her own past and information about her own parents and by doing this meets Ravi again.

We see a ugly naive countrygirl slowly develop in a  in dependant beautiful woman.

The novel digs into the prejudice of those days. It has also a hint of mr Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh from "Pride and Prejudice" due to the fact that Charles cannot stop praising the local leading lady in the British circle. That element is often very funny.

It is a light romance novel that guarantees a day of pleasant reading. And right from the start you expect who will end up with whom but that is always the case with this kind of novels.