A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O’Neal

 

Title:  A Thousand Painted Hours

Author:  Barbara O’Neal

Narrated by:  Sneha Mathan

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Length: Approximately 15 hour and 22 minutes

Source: Thank-you to @barbaraonealauthor @amazonpublishing @tlcbooktours for both the audiobook and physical review copies.

Do you have a favorite artist?  I enjoy art, and Monet’s paintings have always been “happy place” art that lifts my spirits.

Elsie Turner grew up in India in the early 1900s and was separated from her great love Tanveer, when her parents moved back to England during her teenage years.  The one bright spot was that she was able to go to art school and make new friends.

In a second timeline in 1940, the London Blitz is ongoing and Elsie remembers the past and what has led her up to that moment in time.  Will Elsie survive?  And can she thrive and have the future she longs for?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The novel was written in short chapters which I found easy to read.  Many of the chapters were letters written primarily between Tanveer and Elsie.

·       Tanveer and Elsie had an epic love story that stretched through time, distance, and marriage to other people.  They respected each other’s minds, while also being wildly attracted to one another.

·       I loved the descriptions of India, especially the tigers.  It was a great setting.

·       The Blitz was horrifying and seemed to parallel Elsie’s careful life imploding with her precarious relationship with her husband and mother.

·       It was an interesting look into the prejudice at the time that would not allow a relationship between an Indian man and an English woman.

·       I loved how all the pieces of the puzzle of Elsie’s life came together perfectly at the end.

·       I listened to about half the book on audio and read half of the book in the physical copy. Both were enjoyable and I liked the audiobook narrator.

·       The book included discussion of the Indian independence movement which I enjoyed.

·       I would classify this book as slow burn, character driven, first love, historical fiction, and historical romance.

Overall, A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O’Neal was a beautifully written novel set in India and London during the first half of the 20^th century that told the story of an enduring forbidden love.