‘For my whole life I had been looking for home. But why would that be in a place that I’d left? Perhaps I had to keep moving forward in order to find it…’
Soon after upending her life to accompany her boyfriend Ryan to the Arctic, Maya realises it’s not all Northern Lights and husky sleigh rides. Instead, she’s facing sub-zero temperatures, 24-hour darkness, crippling anxiety – and a distant boyfriend as a result.
In her loneliest moment, Maya opens her late mother’s recipe book and cooks Indian food for the first time. Through this, her confidence unexpectedly grows – she makes friends, secures a job as a chef, and life in the Arctic no longer freezes her with fear.
But there’s a cost: the aromatic cuisine rekindles memories of her enigmatic mother and her childhood in Bangalore. Can Maya face the past and forge a future for herself in this new town? After all, there’s now high demand for a Curry Club in the Arctic, and just one person with the know-how to run it…
A tender and uplifting story about family, community, and finding where you truly belong – guaranteed to warm your heart despite the icy setting!
Title : The Arctic Curry Club
Author : Dani Redd
Narrator : Zoha Rahman
Format : eALC
Length : 10 hours 6 minutes
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Publisher : Harper Collins UK Audio
Release Date : December 9, 2021
Reviewer : Micky
Rating : ★ ★ ★ ★
Micky’s 4 star review
Headlines:
Deep themes
Authentic anxiety rep
From Svalbard to Bangalore
This book was a bit of a travel feast with polar (there’s a pun there) opposite countries and a chef learning to cook the fayre of the places. I came into this book expecting a super light Christmassy romance, but what I got was so much more and better than that. The Arctic Curry Club was an empowering read of previous family trauma, mental illness represented well and woman finding her own feet to stand on.
Maya arrived in Svalbard (I enjoyed looking at photos of the place after reading the book) with her partner and her reaction to this extreme environment felt realistic. Finding your foot and purpose in a place like this was always going to be difficult. Relationships and friendships were key to this story but alongside this was a narrative of Maya’s family, her childhood in Bangalore and a trip back there. I really enjoyed the contrast of these two places.
Food, cooking, polar bears, illness and arctic foxes made for an entertaining read. The themes while deep, weren’t heavy and there was a lighter balance kept through the narrative to offset any emotional elements.
I listenend on audio and thoroughly enjoyed the narration (single pov).
Thank you to Avon Books UK for the review copy.
A Take from Two Cities 