Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year ● NPR Great Reads ● RUSA Reading List Longlist Selection ● RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award Winner“A rising talent.” —BooklistDr. Nikhil ‘Nic’ Joshi had it all—marriage, career, purpose. Until, while working for Doctors Without Borders in a Mumbai slum, his wife, Jen, discovered a black market organ transplant ring. Before she could expose the … transplant ring. Before she could expose the truth, Jen was killed.
Two years after the tragedy, Nic is a cruise ship doctor who spends his days treating seasickness and sunburn and his nights in a boozy haze. On one of those blurry evenings on deck, Nic meets a woman who makes a startling claim: she received Jen’s heart in a transplant and has a message for him. Nic wants to discount Jess Koirala’s story as absurd, but there’s something about her reckless desperation that resonates despite his doubts.
Jess has spent years working her way out of a nightmarish life in Calcutta and into a respectable Bollywood dance troupe. Now she faces losing the one thing that matters—her young son, Joy. She needs to uncover the secrets Jen risked everything for; but the unforeseen bond that results between her and Nic is both a lifeline and a perilous complication.
Delving beyond the surface of modern Indian-American life, acclaimed author Sonali Dev’s page-turning novel is both riveting and emotionally rewarding—an extraordinary story of human connection, bravery, and hope.
Praise for Sonali Dev and Her Novels
“Sonali Dev is a gifted writer who creates characters that capture the heart… I can’t wait for Sonali’s next book.” —Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author
“Exquisitely written… A bright, beautiful gem.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review, on The Bollywood Bride
“Dev’s prose captures the rich and unique beauty of Indian culture while telling a story that is complex, culturally accurate, and full of emotion.” —Booklist on The Bollywood Bride
“Vibrant and exuberantly romantic…chock full of details that reflect India’s social and cultural flux.” —NPR.com on A Bollywood Affair
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Sonali Dev is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. A Change of Heart is her third novel and is my favorite of the three. It’s full of heartbreak, grief, unrelenting pasts, deceit, thriller/suspense, a bit of mystery, romance, and a reminder of how we can use our flawed human condition to save each other despite it all. Given the complexities within this storyline, Ms. Dev managed to keep the characters and their circumstances full of emotion and surprising beauty. I loved this book and would highly recommend it. Check it out!
My favorite quote:
“Sometimes you just have to have faith. Sometimes you have to leap first to see if your parachute will open.”
While its subject matter was a little too serious for my tastes, the book itself is well written and interesting. If you like more meaty content but with the HEA, this one is for you.
This is book three in series, but definitely can be read as a stand-alone. However, I’m going to suggest you read THE BOLLYWOOD BRIDE and A BOLLYWOOD AFFAIR first, as the characters are introduced in those books, plus you’re going to want to read them anyway. Trust me.
I’ve known Sonali for a couple of years, but for some odd, unexplainable reason, I hadn’t read any of her books until recently. All I can think of was that I’d lost my mind. Her writing is beautiful. The tale she tells is heart-wrenching and powerful, and so full of emotion that you will need tissues. But, she will make you smile, too.
This particular book is about Dr. Nikhil “Nic” Joshi who lost his wife in a horrific manner two years earlier. Since then he’s been living in the bottom of bottle and just existing. In A CHANGE OF HEART, the author gives him a second chance at life, redemption, justice and even love. Yes, there is a romance and our heroine, Jess, is great, but it’s also about Nic finding his love of living again. His passion and learning to forgive himself. His story and journey will break your heart and then Sonali Dev will put it back together at the end.
If Nic’s story weren’t enough to capture your heart, Jess’s surely will. She’s a mother who will do anything to save her child. She’s strong and smart and determined; all the things you want a heroine to be. She’s also ruthless when needed and that’s a nice twist.
I’ve already bought the fourth book, which just came out last month, A DISTANT HEART and have it on my line up of books to read ASAP.
A CHANGE OF HEART is definitely a “must read” recommendation.
A CHANGE OF HEART is an emotionally charged read. It is not something to be read in between snatches of time but to be devoured and savoured. The book will not let you put it down with the feelings, emotions, deceit, helplessness and love just make it an amazing read.
This is the first book I have read by Sonali Dev and I have already bought another one, The Bollywood Bride to read. I received a copy of A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev through Net Galley. I recommend this book to all lovers of love. Readers who dig bittersweet love stories will love this one as I have read few like this one. It is a moving story of second chances and finding love.
The book revolves around Nic or Nikhil a ‘Doctors Without Borders’ who has lost his wife and Jess, a dancer from Bollywood who claims to have his dead wife Jen/ Jennifer’s heart through a transplant. She asks him to help find proof about an organ transplant racket that caused her death. Jen was helping to find proof and had hidden away before her untimely death.
The author has such mastery with words and sentiments that I was on an emotional rollercoaster along with Nic and Jess. Their meeting, their interaction, the concern, kind gestures they want no one to see. The feelings that overwhelm them yet they persevere. It was simply masterful.
The family and doting parents of Nic added to the charm of the book making it sweet and endearing as well as sad as we see a mother, two, in fact, pine away for their child. Sonali has such mastery over the pain and guilt as well as the betrayal. I was amazed by the sadness but it does not make the book any dull or morose. In fact, it makes it so much more real.
True love causes heartbreak, changes us forever and A Change Of Heart is the perfect example. This book has enough mystery to keep the pages turning, enough heartbreak to keep mind engrossed and enough love to make me a fan.
The trip that brings Nic and Jen close also explores their pasts and connects them. And really finding Jen, in the end, was the best part. I found the secondary characters well-etched. Joy, Sweety, Nic’s parents all have depth and add to the flow of the story. I want to know about Ria and Vikram’s love story as well as about the evil Naag and Asif Khan. The feisty Kimi and DCP Rahul Savant made the story quite real without making it gruesome are crucial characters who need stories of their own. I hope Sonali pens their story soon so we can also find more about Naag and how it ends!
Jen and Nic might have found each other but all of us will need to know how it finally ends and Jennifer’s courage is not in vain. A love story that kept me obsessing about it for days, pick it to be hooked to Sonali’s writing.
5 stars.
© Inderpreet Kaur Uppal
This book… wow. The sheer amount of emotions I felt while reading this book is incalculable. After reading the description, I knew this was going to be emotional roller-coaster. Despite how excited I was to get an ARC, I actually waited a few days to read it. I knew I needed to be able to devout a few hours to sitting in my bed, reading this book with a box of tissues next to me. After finishing it, I can honestly say that Sonali Dev is one of the most amazing writers I’ve ever read. I had loved Nic and Jen in her previous book, The Bollywood Bride, and really really did not want to read about Jen dying. However, Dev was able to convince me as the reader that Nic and Jess, the heroine, belong together as much as Jen and Nic previously did. Both of her characters have been emotionally run through the wringer and it was so satisfying to see them begin to heal each other. The subplot of this book focuses around black-market organ stealing which provides an interesting physical contrast to emotional pain the characters deal with. I met Sonali Dev at the Baltimore Book Festival two weekends ago and she confirmed that her next book will be continuing that story with two minor characters introduced in A Change of Heart!