#the perfumist of Paris

[imlivingmylife]

“…I don’t always know what I’m doing. I try something. If it doesn’t work, I try something else. None of us are perfect, are we? But we have to keep trying to be our best selves. You are on your way to the top. You’ll make some missteps, but that’s normal. Mostly; you’re going to do things you didn’t even know you were capable of.”

-Lakshmi

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Perfumist of Paris | Author: Alka Joshi | Publisher: MIRA (2023)

[bookdivareads]

Book Showcase: THE PERFUMIST OF PARIS by Alka Joshi

Read an #excerpt from the recently released THE PERFUMIST OF PARIS, book 3 in the Jaipur Trilogy by @alkajoshi. #fiction #historicalfiction #ownvoices #blogtour #MIRABooks #HTPBooks #recommendedread @HarlequinBooks @HarperCollins

The Perfumist of Paris, The Jaipur Trilogy #3, by Alka JoshiISBN: 9780778386148 (Hardcover)ISBN: 9780369718495 (eBook)ISBN: 9781488218057 (Audiobook)ASIN: B0B623PM6Y (Audible audiobook)ASIN: B09ZPPPSGV (Kindle edition)Page Count: 384Release Date: March 28, 2023Publisher: MIRA BooksGenre: Fiction | Historical Fiction | Own Voices “A stunning portrait of a woman blossoming into her full power…this…

[bookaddict24-7]

AUTHOR FEATURE:

﹒Alka Joshi﹒

Three Books Written By this Author:

The Henna Artist

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

The Perfumist of Paris 

___

Happy reading!

[rockislandadultreads]

NoveList Combo: Lush & Descriptive Title Recommendations

Did you know NoveList is a database you can access with your library card to find reading recommendations? Find your next favorite read with this fantastic readers tool! Check it out on our website here.

The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch

In a faraway kingdom, in a long-ago land...

...a young girl lived happily in Moscow with her family: a sister, a father, and an eccentric mother who liked to tell fairy tales and collect porcelain dolls.

One summer night, everything changed, and all that remained of that family were the girl and her mother.

Now, a decade later and studying at Oxford University, Rosie has an English name, a loving fiancé, and a promising future, but all she wants is to understand--and bury--the past. After her mother dies, Rosie returns to Russia, armed with little more than her mother’s strange folklore--and a single key.

What she uncovers is a devastating family history that spans the 1917 Revolution, the siege of Leningrad, Stalin’s purges, and beyond.

At the heart of this saga stands a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions—and love for an idealistic man—will set off a sweeping story that reverberates across the century....

Nocturne by Alyssa Wees

Growing up in Chicago’s Little Sicily in the years following the Great War, Grace Dragotta has always wanted to be a ballerina, ever since she first peered through the windows of the Near North Ballet Company. So when Grace is orphaned, she chooses the ballet as her home, imagining herself forever ensconced in a transcendent world of light and beauty so different from her poor, immigrant upbringing.

Years later, with the Great Depression in full swing, Grace has become the company's new prima ballerina—though achieving her long-held dream is not the triumph she once envisioned. Time and familiarity have tarnished that shining vision, and her new position means the loss of her best friend in the world. Then she attracts the attention of the enigmatic Master La Rosa as her personal patron, and realizes the world is not as small or constricted as she had come to fear.

Who is her mysterious patron, and what does he want from her? As Grace begins to unlock the Master's secrets, she discovers that there is beauty in darkness as well as light, finds that true friendship cannot be broken by time or distance, and realizes there may be another way entirely to achieve the transcendence she has always sought.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after—and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past.

But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there lurks the shadow of another girl: Azure, Indigo’s dearest childhood friend who suddenly disappeared. As the house slowly reveals his wife’s secrets, the bridegroom will be forced to choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage . . . or their lives.

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi

Paris, 1974. Radha is now thirty-two and living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents.

When her friend’s grandfather offered her a job at his parfumerie, she quickly discovered she had a talent—she could find the perfect fragrance for any customer who walked in the door. Now, ten years later, she’s working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her.

Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India, where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra—women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her—upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.

This is the third volume in “The Jaipur Trilogy.”

[smithlibrary]

Heading Into Town A book with the name of a city in the title

When in Rome by Sarah Adams (Romance)

Shiloh 1862 by Winston groom (Non-Fiction)

The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Chouinard (Fiction)

The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa Barr (Fiction)

Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews (Fiction)

The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen (Fiction)

A phoenix first must burn : sixteen stories of black girl magic, resistance, and hope by Patrice Caldwell (YA SS)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Fiction)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society : a novel by Mary Ann Shafer (Fiction)

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Fiction)

China Dolls by Lisa See (Fiction)

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri (Fiction)

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (Fiction)

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean (Fiction)

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (SFF)

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris (SFF)

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant (Fiction)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (Classic)

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (Fiction)

New York by Edward Rutherford (Fiction)

The Lace Makers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri (Fiction)

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (Fiction)

'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (Horror)

Lockdown on London Lane by Beth Reekles (Romance)

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff (Fiction)

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi (Fiction)

The Witch of New York: the trials of Polly Bodine and the birth of tabloid justice by Alex Hortis (Non-Fiction)

Killing the Witches: the horror of Salem, Mass. by Bill O'Reilly (Non-Fiction)

L.A. Weather by Maria Amparo Escandon (Fiction)

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (Mystery)

Meet me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan (YA Fiction)

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (Fiction)

The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull (Fiction)

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson (YA Fiction)

The Tehran Initiative by Joel Rosenberg (Religious Fiction)

The Beirut Protocol by Joel Rosenberg (Religious Mystery)

Memphis by Tara Stringfellow (Fiction)

Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick (Bio)

Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters (Mystery)

Chicago by David Mamet (Thriller)

Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo (Mystery)

The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit (Fiction)

Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein (Non-Fiction)

[penofhearts]

Reading in Fall 2024

Hello All, Welcome to another blogpost related to reading books. If you enjoy reading books then this post is for you. If you are abt to develop a reading habit then this book is for you as well. Last month I read two books. The Perfumist of Paris (The Jaipur Trilogy, #3) by Alka Joshi and Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari are the two books I read in September 2024. This…

[thelattechronicles]

J's Reading List

This is my ongoing list (with constant new additions) - this list isn't necessarily what I'm trying to finish in just 2024 alone:

A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Babel by R. F Kuang

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare

Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer ​​

The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski

The Curator by Owen King

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Emily Wilde’s Enyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

The Endless Vessel by Charles Soule

Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novak

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

I Only Read Murder by Ian and Will Ferguson

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

Into the Uncut Grass by Trevor Noah

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms (Whimbrel House Book 1) by Charlie N. Holmberg

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi

The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros

The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Sanofler

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke

The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Sanofler

The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Halley

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Talking at Night by Claire Daverly

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

True Biz by Sara Novic

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall

When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

You Are Here by David Nicholls

Before your memory fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Before we say goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi *

Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare (couldn’t finish it, dragging my feet through; ultimately returned before due)

Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi *

FINISHED SINCE JAN. 1, 2024 (and still going):

A Court of Thorns and ROSES BY Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury

A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Silver Flames

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

The Lost Tarot by Sarah Henstra

Circe by Madeline Miller

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix. E. Harrow ***

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J Maas

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern ***

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros *****

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros *****

[storizenmagazine]

#BookReview: The intriguing finale to the Jaipur Trilogy is "The Perfumist of Paris" by Alka Joshi, which immerses readers in a world of aromatic creativity and personal metamorphosis against the backdrop of Paris in the 1970s.

[book-on-the-bright-side]

"...a guilty conscience is a lively enemy."

- The Perfumist of Paris (The Jaipur Trilogy, Part 3)

[imlivingmylife]

“The measure of us isn’t in the day-to-day. And it’s not in our past or our future. It’s in the fundamental changes we make within ourselves over a lifetime.”

-Lakshmi

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi

[memoriesfrombooks]

The characters – in India and in Paris – of The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi come to life in this book as does the world of fragrances. The smaller stories of the other women in the book – Radha's daughter who quietly takes on the role of protector, Radha's mother in law, the ladies in Agra, and the young girl whose finds in herself a leader – are all memorable. Now that the trilogy has ended, I look forward to seeing what Alka Joshi will tackle next. 

Reviewed for NetGalley.

[nedsecondline]

Perfumist of Paris Review + My Landslide Documentary + Podcast

Perfumist of Paris Review + My Landslide Documentary + Podcast

[annarellix]

THE PERFUMIST OF PARIS By Alka Joshi - EXCERPT

Paris, 1974. Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents. She has an exciting and challenging position working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her. Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India, where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra—women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her—upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.

The Jaipur Trilogy Book 1: The Henna Artist Book 2: The Secret Keeper of Jaipur Book 3: The Perfumist of Paris

The Author Born in India and raised in the U.S. since she was nine, Alka Joshi has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts. Joshi's debut novel, The Henna Artist,  immediately became a NYT bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick, was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, & is in development as a TV series. Her second novel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur (2021), is followed by The Perfumist of Paris (2023). Find her online at www.alkajoshi.com.

SOCIAL: Author Website: www.alkajoshi.com TWITTER: @alkajoshi FB: @alkajoshi2019 Insta: @thealkajoshi Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18257842.Alka_Joshi

BUY LINKS: Harlequin Indiebound Amazon Barnes & Noble Books-A-Million Target Google Apple Kobo

EXCERPT: Paris September 2, 1974

I pick up on the first ring; I know it’s going to be her. She always calls on his birthday. Not to remind me of the day he came into this world but to let me know I’m not alone in my remembrance. “Jiji?” I keep my voice low. I don’t want to wake Pierre and the girls. “Kaisa ho, choti behen?” my sister says. I hear the smile in her voice, and I respond with my own. It’s lovely to hear Lakshmi’s gentle Hindi here in my Paris apartment four thousand miles away. I’d always called her Jiji—big sister—but she hadn’t always called me choti behen. It was Malik who addressed me as little sister when I first met him in Jaipur eighteen years ago, and he wasn’t even related to Jiji and me by blood. He was simply her apprentice. My sister started calling me choti behen later, after everything in Jaipur turned topsy-turvy, forcing us to make a new home in Shimla. Today, my sister will talk about everything except the reason she’s calling. It’s the only way she’s found to make sure I get out of bed on this particular date, to prevent me from spiraling into darkness every year on the second of September, the day my son, Niki, was born. She started the tradition the first year I was separated from him, in 1957. I was just fourteen. Jiji arrived at my boarding school with a picnic, having arranged for the headmistress to excuse me from classes. We had recently moved from Jaipur to Shimla, and I was still getting used to our new home. I think Malik was the only one of us who adjusted easily to the cooler temperatures and thinner air of the Himalayan mountains, but I saw less of him now that he was busy with activities at his own school, Bishop Cotton. I was in history class when Jiji appeared at the door and beckoned me with a smile. As I stepped outside the room, she said, “It’s such a beautiful day, Radha. Shall we take a hike?” I looked down at my wool blazer and skirt, my stiff patent leather shoes, and wondered what had gotten into her. She laughed and told me I could change into the clothes I wore for nature camp, the one our athletics teacher scheduled every month. I’d woken with a heaviness in my chest, and I wanted to say no, but one look at her eager face told me I couldn’t deny her. She’d cooked my favorite foods for the picnic. Makki ki roti dripping with ghee. Palak paneer so creamy I always had to take a second helping. Vegetable korma. And chole, the garbanzo bean curry with plenty of fresh cilantro. That day, we hiked Jakhu Hill. I told her how I hated math but loved my sweet old teacher. How my roommate, Mathilde, whistled in her sleep. Jiji told me that Madho Singh, Malik’s talking parakeet, was starting to learn Punjabi words. She’d begun taking him to the Community Clinic to amuse the patients while they waited to be seen by her and Dr. Jay. “The hill people have been teaching him the words they use to herd their sheep, and he’s using those same words now to corral patients in the waiting area!” She laughed, and it made me feel lighter. I’ve always loved her laugh; it’s like the temple bells that worshippers ring to receive blessings from Bhagwan. When we reached the temple at the top of the trail, we stopped to eat and watched the monkeys frolicking in the trees. A few of the bolder macaques eyed our lunch from just a few feet away. As I started to tell her a story about the Shakespeare play we were rehearsing after school, I stopped abruptly, remembering the plays Ravi and I used to rehearse together, the prelude to our lovemaking. When I froze, she knew it was time to steer the conversation into less dangerous territory, and she smoothly transitioned to how many times she’d beat Dr. Jay at backgammon. “I let Jay think he’s winning until he realizes he isn’t,” Lakshmi grinned. I liked Dr. Kumar (Dr. Jay to Malik and me), the doctor who looked after me when I was pregnant with Niki—here in Shimla. I’d been the first to notice that he couldn’t take his eyes off Lakshmi, but she’d dismissed it; she merely considered the two of them to be good friends. And here he and my sister have been married now for ten years! He’s been good for her—better than her ex-husband was. He taught her to ride horses. In the beginning, she was scared to be high off the ground (secretly, I think she was afraid of losing control), but now she can’t imagine her life without her favorite gelding, Chandra. So lost am I in memories of the sharp scents of Shimla’s pines, the fresh hay Chandra enjoys, the fragrance of lime aftershave and antiseptic coming off Dr. Jay’s coat, that I don’t hear Lakshmi’s question. She asks again. My sister knows how to exercise infinite patience—she had to do it often enough with those society ladies in Jaipur whose bodies she spent hours decorating with henna paste. I look at the clock on my living room wall. “Well, in another hour, I’ll get the girls up and make their breakfast.” I move to the balcony windows to draw back the drapes. It’s overcast today, but a little warmer than yesterday. Down below, a moped winds its way among parked cars on our street. An older gentleman, keys jingling in his palm, unlocks his shop door a few feet from the entrance to our apartment building. “The girls and I may walk a ways before we get on the Métro.” “Won’t the nanny be taking them to school?” Turning from the window, I explain to Jiji that we had to let our nanny go quite suddenly and the task of taking my daughters to the International School has fallen to me. “What happened?” It’s a good thing Jiji can’t see the color rise in my cheeks. It’s embarrassing to admit that Shanti, my nine-year-old daughter, struck her nanny on the arm, and Yasmin did what she would have done to one of her children back in Algeria: she slapped Shanti. Even as I say it, I feel pinpricks of guilt stab the tender skin just under my belly button. What kind of mother raises a child who attacks others? Have I not taught her right from wrong? Is it because I’m neglecting her, preferring the comfort of work to raising a girl who is presenting challenges I’m not sure I can handle? Isn’t that what Pierre has been insinuating? I can almost hear him say, “This is what happens when a mother puts her work before family.” I put a hand on my forehead. Oh, why did he fire Yasmin before talking to me? I didn’t even have a chance to understand what transpired, and now my husband expects me to find a replacement. Why am I the one who must find the solution to a problem I didn’t cause? My sister asks how my work is going. This is safer ground. My discomfort gives way to excitement. “I’ve been working on a formula for Delphine that she thinks is going to be next season’s favorite fragrance. I’m on round three of the iteration. The way she just knows how to pull back on one ingredient and add barely a drop of another to make the fragrance a success is remarkable, Jiji.” I can talk forever about fragrances. When I’m mixing a formula, hours can pass before I stop to look around, stretch my neck or step outside the lab for a glass of water and a chat with Celeste, Delphine’s secretary. It’s Celeste who often reminds me that it’s time for me to pick up the girls from school when I’m between nannies. And when I do have someone to look after the girls, Celeste casually asks what I’m serving for dinner, reminding me that I need to stop work and get home in time to feed them. On the days Pierre cooks, I’m only too happy to stay an extra hour before finishing work for the day. It’s peaceful in the lab. And quiet. And the scents—honey and clove and vetiver and jasmine and cedar and myrrh and gardenia and musk—are such comforting companions. They ask nothing of me except the freedom to envelop another world with their essence. My sister understands. She told me once that when she skated a reed dipped in henna paste across the palm, thigh or belly of a client to draw a Turkish fig or a boteh leaf or a sleeping baby, everything fell away—time, responsibilities, worries. My daughter Asha’s birthday is coming up. She’s turning seven, but I know Jiji won’t bring it up. Today, my sister will refrain from any mention of birthdays, babies or pregnancies because she knows these subjects will inflame my bruised memories. Lakshmi knows how hard I’ve worked to block out the existence of my firstborn, the baby I had to give up for adoption. I’d barely finished grade eight when Jiji told me why my breasts were tender, why I felt vaguely nauseous. I wanted to share the good news with Ravi: we were going to have a baby! I’d been so sure he would marry me when he found out he was going to be a father. But before I could tell him, his parents whisked him away to England to finish high school. I haven’t laid eyes on him since. Did he know we’d had a son? Or that our baby’s name is Nikhil? I wanted so much to keep my baby, but Jiji said I needed to finish school. At thirteen, I was too young to be a mother. What a relief it was when my sister’s closest friends, Kanta and Manu, agreed to raise the baby as their own and then offered to keep me as his nanny, his ayah. They had the means, the desire and an empty nursery. I could be with Niki all day, rock him, sing him to sleep, kiss his peppercorn toes, pretend he was all mine. It took me only four months to realize that I was doing more harm than good, hurting Kanta and Manu by wanting Niki to love only me. When I was first separated from my son, I thought about him every hour of every day. The curl on one side of his head that refused to settle down. The way his belly button stuck out. How eagerly his fat fingers grasped the milk bottle I wasn’t supposed to give him. Having lost her own baby, Kanta was happy to feed Niki from her own breast. And that made me jealous—and furious. Why did she get to nurse my baby and pretend he was hers? I knew it was better for him to accept her as his new mother, but still. I hated her for it. I knew that as long as I stayed in Kanta’s house, I would keep Niki from loving the woman who wanted to nurture him and was capable of caring for him in the long run. Lakshmi saw it, too. But she left the decision to me. So I made the only choice I could. I left him. And I tried my best to pretend he never existed. If I could convince myself that the hours Ravi Singh and I spent rehearsing Shakespeare—coiling our bodies around each other as Othello and Desdemona, devouring each other into exhaustion—had been a dream, surely I could convince myself our baby had been a dream, too. And it worked. On every day but the second of September. Ever since I left Jaipur, Kanta has been sending envelopes so thick I know what they contain without opening them: photos of Niki the baby, the toddler, the boy. I return each one, unopened, safe in the knowledge that the past can’t touch me, can’t splice my heart, can’t leave me bleeding. The last time I saw Jiji in Shimla, she showed me a similar envelope addressed to her. I recognized the blue paper, Kanta’s elegant handwriting—letters like g and y looping gracefully—and shook my head. “When you’re ready, we can look at the photos together,” Jiji said. But I knew I never would. Today, I’ll make it through Niki’s seventeenth birthday in a haze, as I always do. I know tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to do what I couldn’t today. I’ll seal that memory of my firstborn as tightly as if I were securing the lid of a steel tiffin for my lunch, making sure that not a drop of the masala dal can escape.

Excerpted from The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi © 2023 by Alka Joshi, used with permission from HarperCollins/MIRA Books.

[chalisapdf]

The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi PDF

The perfumist of paris by alka joshi pdf: The Perfumist of Paris is a novel written by Alka Joshi, who is also the author of The Henna Artist. The novel is set in Paris during the 1920s, a time when the city was a hub of creativity and innovation in the arts, fashion, and fragrance industries.  Through Joshi’s vivid descriptions, readers are transported to the streets of Paris and can imagine the…

[enchanted-moura]

Sims idea: The Perfumist.

She lives in Paris and is widely known for her combination of notes in the various fragrances she has produced. She enjoys luxury dinings, aromatherapy sessions, and traveling worldwide to learn of new fragrant ingredients to experiment with.

She’s a cougar lol and is courted by young, wealthy men across the world who invest in her brand and travels.

You're a bad bitch. Maybe not this Sim, but I gottta create a gorgeous regal Tika Sumpter esque character. I love your creativity and your mind, I really appreciate your time and kindness.