The Perfumist of Paris (Jaipur Trilogy #3), by Alka Joshi

I ended my review of Alka Joshi’s previous book, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, by saying “I hope there is a third in the series, as we’ve yet to get a story focused on Lakshmi’s sister Radha, and that would round out a trilogy very nicely.” This is that book, which does indeed round out the trilogy nicely.

Several years after the events of The Secret Keeper, Radha has left India and is married, living and working in Paris trying to build a career and reputation for herself as a perfumist. We’re on the cusp of the women’s movement now, and Radha’s husband has trouble understanding why she wants to carry on working when he has a career and they have two daughters to raise. Radha’s quest to become a perfume artist in her own right not only puts her on a collision course with her husband and mother-in-law, but also takes her on a trip back to India and into an encounter with some of those secrets that were kept back in Jaipur, all those years ago. I wasn’t as engaged in this novel as the first two because the Paris setting wasn’t as intriguing to me as the Indian settings of the other two books, but it did tie off the stories of all the characters nicely and give a sense of completion to the trilogy.