Meanwhile, Lakshmi, reluctantly accepts that Malik has fallen in love with Nimmi, and she takes the illiterate woman and her children, under her wing, finding trouble of her own. Fast forward fifty years. I’m sitting at my laptop, creating a scene between two characters when Malik, the enterprising servant boy I created in The Henna Artist, starts to tell me he’d like to tell his story. He’s no longer eight years old; he’s twenty. I ignore him for a while, but he’s persistent—and persuasive. An extremely likeable and loyal character, Malik has captured the hearts of thousands of readers around the world. So I finally set aside the project I was working on and let Malik tell me his story. It came pouring forth. True to his character, Malik’s story is full of adventure and danger, and his love interest is a woman of unique character—not unlike Lakshmi.

Lakshmi is trying to be an independent woman, in a time when independence is not allowed for Women in India. She’s trying to build her own home so that she can bring her family to live with her. One day her estranged husband shows up with a young girl who he says is her Little sister. Is this young girl her punishment for leaving her family or a blessing that has been left behind by her parents. She also finds out at the same time that her parents are dead and that they never received the money she had been sending. Her mom burned every letter she wrote without opening it. I’m currently researching the third book in the trilogy. Little did I know when I started writing The Henna Artist ten years ago that I’d end up writing three books, each focusing on one major character. The third book centers on Lakshmi’s sister Radha as an assistant perfumer in Paris, where she lives with her French husband and two daughters. She’s created the family she’s always wanted and surprised herself with an ambition she hadn’t known she harbored: to become a master perfumer, a difficult accomplishment for a woman in 1974. She’s on the cusp of developing a scent using an Indian ingredient unknown to the French when a visitor from the past upends her future. The bulk of the plot revolves around Malik and his new position in Jaipur. The Maharani Latika commissions the construction of a grand cinema, and he is present on opening night, granted the honor due to his apprenticeship with the palace architects. When the unthinkable happens and part of the structure collapses, blame lands where convenient, on those close to Malik. Sensing an injustice in progress, he seeks to uncover clues that point to those truly responsible. A secondary storyline concerns the relationships between the three main characters, as Malik and Nimmi fall in love and Lakshmi comes to realize that she must let the young man live his own life.

Media Reviews

It was irritating to read a character coming from a lineage of poets and writers talking about the whole women of Jaipur in such a judgemental and condescending manner. The author also touches on castes in India, and I learned that high caste people aren't supposed to do jobs that require touching people's heads or feet; and high caste contractors can't built bathrooms, because of the 'unclean' association. Plot: corruption is incorporated into the story-lines involving gold smuggling and the mysterious collapse of the newly-built Royal Jewel Cinema, both inadvertently affecting the lives of the main characters as well as keeping me in suspense;

overall, i do appreciate another book revolving around this group of people, especially malik. he was such an adorable boy in ‘the henna artist,’ so it was really lovely seeing him grow and create a place for himself. Samir's sponsorship helped Lakshmi become the henna artist for high-caste women in Jaipur, including his wife Parvati. I don't want to say more because of spoilers, but I think it's fair to say that Radha - being a strong-willed hormonal adolescent getting her first taste of freedom - causes her share of trouble. I found the historyInstead of Lakshmi's parents, her estranged husband Hari shows up, with a thirteen-year-old girl called Radha. My favorite part of the story was Lakshmi's job, her role as Henna artist and abortionist, and how she helped people. I loved seeing the insight into the lives of the rich and how her Henna helped them as well as the poor and desperate and the different remedies she had. It was a fascinating look at Indian society in the 50s and the relationship between her and her clients was very well done.