The Overnight Palace

Elena has always stuck to the safest paths through life. But when she finds herself unexpectedly single at the age of 40, she decides to veer away from her usual habits and do something unexpected. And this is how she finds herself in Udaipur, a sun-drenched city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Staying alone in a tourist hotel, Elena is torn between fully immersing herself in the local culture and holding herself back, as she always has. She wants to explore her buried creative side, but finds herself uninspired. Then she acquires a beautiful painting and promptly loses it in the crowd. When a charasmatic young painter offers to help her locate the master painter who created it, Elena accepts the challenge. Little does she know, the loss of the painting will lead her on a journey that will transform her into someone she never thought she could be.

Set in the beautiful country of India, full of lush descriptions of the local culture, Janet Marie Sola’s The Overnight Palace is sure to draw readers in, holding their rapt attention through every stage of Elena’s quest. She is drawn in by the beauty and romance of India, and she finds so much more than she was expecting. The different stages of her personal transformation are compared to various Hindi goddesses, which provides a different (and gorgeous) layer of imagery to the story. Sahil, the painter who becomes Elena’s lover, is a fascinating character; he is everything that Elena is not, and he serves to be the catalyst for many of Elena’s personal character shifts. Many readers will see themselves in Elena herself, a woman who wants so badly to step outside of the box she’s always lived her life in but is not sure how to do so. The Overnight Palace is a gorgeous and sensual novel, one that readers of all kinds are certain to find enchanting.