Jaipur Moon Blog Tour and Guest Post

This book event is through my participation as a tour host for Rachel’s Random Resources. Spots are open to become a tour host. Comment to find out how to apply!

Jaipur Moon Blog Tour includes a guest post by author Liz Harris. Check out this interesting read, leave a comment, and share on social to earn entries into the July contest for Sarandipity’s.

Book Details

Jaipur Moon

Jaipur, 1934

When Philip Grainger and Frank Fletcher met late at night on the edge of an indigo plantation in Gujarat back in 1916, and one of them handed a new born baby to the other and walked away, their stated intention was never to see each other again.

In Jaipur, 1934, almost eighteen years later, Philip’s daughter, Eleanor, is excited to learn that a new family has moved into the street where they live, and that the family has a daughter similar in age to herself.

When Frank Fletcher, having struggled for years to make a profit from his isolated indigo plantation, turns to exporting, he is encouraged by his exporter friend, Maxwell Anderson, to move his family to Jaipur. His daughter, Alice, hopes that at last she will make some friends. 

But where there are secrets, someone invariably senses a secret, is determined to uncover it and use it to his advantage. Nothing stays hidden for ever…

Thank goodness I went there!

Guest Post

Before the publication of The Silken Knot, set in Dinan in Brittany, 1947, I wrote an article saying that my research trip to Dinan had been the most important research trip I’d ever undertaken as it had shown me something I hadn’t got from any of the books or maps I’d bought – it had shown me the length and the steepness of the hill from the port to the small medieval town at the top of the hill. Had I located my characters at the top of the hill, as I’d intended, anyone who read the book would know I hadn’t been to Dinan.

(Photo 1: the steep hill up from the port to the town)

But Dinan became my second most important research trip. My trip to Jaipur proved to be even more invaluable. Although I’d been to India before, a magical trip after which I wrote Darjeeling Inheritance, Cochin Fall and Simla Mist, I had never been to Jaipur, the Pink City.

When I embarked on my research for Jaipur Moon, to be set in 1934, I did what I always do, which was to scour through libraries and bookshops for anything that could help me with the background of the city. However, despite searching all the catalogues, I found there was virtually nothing. I found a map of Jaipur in the 1930s, which is in the British Library, so I knew exactly how much of the town was built up, and where it had been developed, but there was virtually nothing about the life of the British in Jaipur at that time.

I bought the only two books I found, The House of Jaipur and A Princess Remembers, but both were effectively the story of Gayatri Devi, known as Ayesha. Ayesha was the third wife of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II. Jai and Ayesha, as they were known, were friends with Frank Sinatra, Truman Capote, Jackie Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. They were India’s golden couple, who married in 1940, and much of their story took place after Indian Independence in 1947.

My book was to be set in 1934, though, and my interest wasn’t in the lives of the incredibly wealthy, such as a maharaja and his wives.

(Photo 2: The Rajmahal, the former British Residency, into which Ayesha and Jai moved in 1958.)

My interest has always been in ordinary people who have flaws, as has everyone (apart from me, that is!). But with so little available about Jaipur in the 1930s, I knew I had to go there. By going there, I would find out exactly where my characters lived, and learn about their lives. And that’s what happened.

The first thing I found is that Jaipur is quite flat. I was determined they’d have a view from their houses, so I located them opposite Man Sagar Lake, on top of which the Water Palace, Jal Mahal, seemingly floated. “Mahal” means palace and “Jal” means Water. Between the families and the lake was the famous Amer Road that ran from the north of Jaipur right through the town. The area in which my families lived was actually undeveloped in the 1930s.

I chose the name Victoria Crescent for the fictional road in which the British lived. It was the custom in Jaipur to name a road after what was in it. The most famous building in Jaipur, the Hawa Mahal, stands on Hawa Mahal Road, not far from City Palace Road, and so on.

(Photo 3: Man Sagar Lake)

I had at all times in Jaipur a guide with me, Akshay, and a driver, Arun. Akshay told me facts that I would never have known if I hadn’t gone there. And I saw places I’d needed to visit. For example, when writing about bazaars, I would have described them as being like British markets with stalls clustered in a square. But not so. Their bazaars generally comprise an unbroken line of open-fronted shops that flank a narrow road. That description, though, doesn’t do justice to their buzz and vitality, not to mention the colour and glitter. Alas, there were no benches for people to sit on, and there was also a lack of pavement cafés in the old city, which took me by surprise.

I hope very much that readers will enjoy going to Jaipur in the pages of Jaipur Moon as much as I enjoyed being there.

(Photo 4: the cover of Jaipur Moon)

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jaipur-Moon-secrets-princely-Colonials-ebook/dp/B0F9P6176J

https://amzn.to/4mamHza

Author Bio –

Liz Harris is the author of the historical novels THE ROAD BACK (US Coffee Time & Romance Book of the Year 2012) and A BARGAIN STRUCK (shortlisted for the RoNA Historical 2013). They and THE LOST GIRL/GOLDEN TIGER and A WESTERN HEART were shortlisted for Best Historical Romance by The Festival of Romance. In addition are contemporary novels EVIE UNDERCOVER, THE ART OF DECEPTION, THE BEST FRIEND and WORD PERFECT. THE DARK HORIZON, THE FLAME WITHIN and THE LENGTHENING SHADOW, set between the wars, comprise The Linford Collection, which was followed by The Colonials : DARJEELING INHERITANCE, COCHIN FALL, HANOI SPRING and SIMLA MIST. The second edition of THE ROAD BACK appeared in August 2022, followed by IN A FAR PLACE. Second editions of A BARGAIN STRUCK and GOLDEN TIGER were published in 2023. THE LOOSE THREAD, the first in the Three Sisters trilogy, was published in February 2024, THE SILKEN KNOT, the second in September 2024 and THE WOVEN LIE in February 2025. AWESTERN HEART was published December 2024. In addition to these, Liz has had short stories published in anthologies and magazines.

Social Media Links –

Twitter Handle:  @lizharrisauthor

Bluesky handle:  @lizharris.bsky.social

Instagram Handle:  liz.harris.52206

Website:  https://lizharrisauthor.com

Facebook: Liz Harris