A Vintage Tale | Book Review

A Vintage Tale

Author: M.M.Marks

Pages: 528

                ‘A Vintage Tale’ by M. M. Marks is a historical fiction set in the early nineteenth century. The story revolves around Amrita who is on a vacation in Darejeeling with her husband Rishi. While she is there she is particularly attracted or curious to know about the tombstone of Ruth McCarthy and the inscription inscribed by Christopher Delano. This curiosity leads to Amrita getting to more about the past of Ruth and learning about a unique cat that she owned. During this whole get to know Ruth mission she learns a lot about her (Ruth) and takes Amrita on a journey through beautiful tea gardens, dense forests, deserts, etc. But she is inspired after knowing the whole story of Ruth and she decides to takes control of her own life and creates the destiny that she wants and everyone will be inspired by her. Overall, this tale is about hope, happiness, fate, destiny which will leave the readers inspired by the end of the book. To know more read A Vintage Tale.

My Thoughts:

                The plot of the story is written beautifully. When I started reading the book I was invested in it right from the first page. The book is written in such a manner that the readers will be interested to know what is going to happen next and most importantly to know how the story ends.

                The narration is done beautifully and the places are described in such a manner that it feels as we have visited them. The next best thing is the illustrations. All the illustrations are beautiful and it helps us to give us a background of how people used to dress up previously or how places were. The picture of writer’s building then the illustration in the chapter ‘The Debut’ gives us a glimpse of the lifestyle of people. Overall, the illustrations do help in visualizing the story more better.

                The language is simple & lucid but there are a few words which some might have to look up. There are few Hindi words used in the novel but the author has given footnotes which is a plus point and people who are unfamiliar with those words will have no difficulty while reading the book.

                To talk about characters we have many characters in the book such as Virginia, Rufus, Ruth, Olivia, Nina, Prema Bai, Mayuri, Christopher, Uttam Singh. All are relatable we all have met people who all have some traits that are similar to the characters in the books.

                The book cover is beautiful and gives a touch of the classic to the whole book.

                Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and it was a pleasure to get to know.

My Rating: 4/5