So19 Reviews: ADITI BHIDE'S Secrets of the Monsoon Sky

In Bhide's vividly evoked debut novel, a young woman seeks family connection amid the cultural collisions and constraints of World War I-era India. 

Eartha Rae is raised in a British orphanage, becomes a hospital nurse during the first World War, and accepts a private nursing job in Winchcombe, England after the mental distress (we'd call it PTSD) of military nursing grows too great. When she receives a letter from a woman claiming to be her aunt, she's both wary and intrigued. It's possible that the letter is a scam—but if the writer is actually her aunt, she might be able to provide the family information and connection Eartha has has always longed for. 

Their meeting leaves Eartha convinced that Mary S. Martin is just who she claims, and, though she doesn't yet learn how she ended up in a British orphanage, she relishes even the snippets of information her aunt shares in their initial conversation. After her employer dies, Eartha accepts Martin's invitation to join her in Chandangudi, India, where her husband Angus works as a civilian administrator in the Indian Army. By the time she arrives in Bombay weeks later, Mrs. Martin is dead of fever, leaving no one but Eartha's devastated uncle and the community's Englishwomen to help her adjust to the life of the British in India.

Opening as it does in 1917, the action of Bhide's novel takes place later than So19's usual timeframe. German U-boats are patrolling international waters, Canadian dancer Maud Allan is shocking audiences with her scantily clad performances, and Mahatma Gandhi has begun his long and transformative work to win Indian independence.  But as Bhide's novel demonstrates, one of the defining characteristics of the British Raj was its refusal to face changing times; with nearly unlimited access to cheap domestic labor and a staunch belief in English racial superiority, the  "memsahibs" who dominate Chandangudi's social life live a far more Victorian—and, in some ways, traditionally British—life than the Englishwomen who remain in the homeland. "Chandangudi was a little England in India, far from the real India," Eartha realizes; of the community's attitude toward the continent's native inhabitants, she notes that "the brazenness of our scorn was appalling." 

Slowly and unsteadily, Eartha is able to develop a close bond with her uncle, form authentic friendships, piece together her parents' complex story, and even fall in love. Unsurprisingly, however, she also falls afoul of the rigid British caste system with dramatic—indeed, life-altering—consequences. Peopled by convincing fictional characters as well as some intriguing historical cameos, Bhide's novel is an engaging, richly detailed exploration of family identity, cultural tensions, and historic change. 

Buy Secrets of the Monsoon Sky by Aditi Bhide on Bookshop or Amazon.  Vibe NW Books, October 2026.