Hardy Girl

British journalist Justine Hardy, who's earlier written an engaging but undistinguished account of her stint with The Indian Express in Delhi, as well as about a breezy quest for Hrithik Roshan, now has a first novel out. Entitled The Wonder House, it's based in Kashmir, and this is what The Times (UK) has to say :

"The timespan of her book incorporates the turn of the millennium, but the love story and the ancient conflicts it describes are decidedly unmodern and could as easily have been set in Kipling’s India as in the recent past...At times, the characterisation is decidedly sketchy. While Masood and some of the Kashmiri supporting cast are deftly drawn, a whiff of stock character hangs over the cross-cultural lovers - the improbably beautiful and doomed duo of Hal and Lila, and even over Gracie, their unlikely cupid with her tetchy mannerisms...But Hardy’s evident intimacy with and affection for the troubled landscape and people of her novel lend The Wonder House an air of distinction that sets it a little apart from the ordinary run of summer romances."