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A review by dollycas
Gone with the Wings by Leena Clover
3.0
Dollycas’s Thoughts
In this story, we meet Meera Patel and her family. They are a very close family of Asian Indian descent and we see quickly how important their culture is to them. The story takes place in a small college town in Oklahoma. Meera works at the college library and her father is a professor there. His assistant is Prudence Walker, also a professor, and she has a huge crush on the man and that makes Meera positively livid. In fact, they have a huge argument in the stairway of her father’s building. So when Prudence ends up dead, Meera becomes the prime suspect. Then a student from India goes missing right after Meera has words with her and the police believe Meera is responsible for that as well. Meera wants to clear her name but her family believes she needs to leave things to the police. Of course, she does do a little investigating on her own, and that’s a good thing.
I like Meera, her family, and her friends and I really want to know more about them. But I think this book is a prime example of the 1st book in the series “itus” where you have to introduce all the characters, try to engage the reader and give us a great mystery too. This story reads more like Woman’s Fiction with a murder happening on the side. We meet the family and how they all connect, but there are a lot of details left for future books. One thing I quickly learned is this family loves to eat. All the food described sounds wonderful and there are recipes in the back of the book. However, the mystery definitely is playing second fiddle to the family part of the story.
As far as the missing person part of the mystery, Meera really does try to find the girl, which was not an easy task, but in the end, I was underwhelmed by this part of the plot. The conclusion, while plausible, doesn’t fit with the student we met in this story.
I didn’t like the way the murder part of the mystery evolved either. The police officer was a family friend, dating the deceased and decided Meera was guilty immediately. His harassment of Meera was very uncomfortable and he should have been removed from the case. The way it wrapped up just didn’t feel right to me, it was a stretch to believe.
I did enjoy learning more about Indian culture and the food.
The authors writing style is unique, it really needs some editing to tighten it up. I hope I am right and that the mystery will be more primary in book 2 because I would like to visit this family again.
In this story, we meet Meera Patel and her family. They are a very close family of Asian Indian descent and we see quickly how important their culture is to them. The story takes place in a small college town in Oklahoma. Meera works at the college library and her father is a professor there. His assistant is Prudence Walker, also a professor, and she has a huge crush on the man and that makes Meera positively livid. In fact, they have a huge argument in the stairway of her father’s building. So when Prudence ends up dead, Meera becomes the prime suspect. Then a student from India goes missing right after Meera has words with her and the police believe Meera is responsible for that as well. Meera wants to clear her name but her family believes she needs to leave things to the police. Of course, she does do a little investigating on her own, and that’s a good thing.
I like Meera, her family, and her friends and I really want to know more about them. But I think this book is a prime example of the 1st book in the series “itus” where you have to introduce all the characters, try to engage the reader and give us a great mystery too. This story reads more like Woman’s Fiction with a murder happening on the side. We meet the family and how they all connect, but there are a lot of details left for future books. One thing I quickly learned is this family loves to eat. All the food described sounds wonderful and there are recipes in the back of the book. However, the mystery definitely is playing second fiddle to the family part of the story.
As far as the missing person part of the mystery, Meera really does try to find the girl, which was not an easy task, but in the end, I was underwhelmed by this part of the plot. The conclusion, while plausible, doesn’t fit with the student we met in this story.
I didn’t like the way the murder part of the mystery evolved either. The police officer was a family friend, dating the deceased and decided Meera was guilty immediately. His harassment of Meera was very uncomfortable and he should have been removed from the case. The way it wrapped up just didn’t feel right to me, it was a stretch to believe.
I did enjoy learning more about Indian culture and the food.
The authors writing style is unique, it really needs some editing to tighten it up. I hope I am right and that the mystery will be more primary in book 2 because I would like to visit this family again.