Yasmin Cordery Khan - Edgware Road

 

Yasmin Cordery Khan - Edgware Road 

 4.5 ⭐

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, General Fiction, Literary Fiction 

Pages: 416

Format:  eARC on NetGalley 

Publisher: Head of Zeus 

Date Published: 3rd March 2022

        Huge thank you to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for eARC to read and review.

Book Blurb: 

1981. Khalid Quraishi is one of the lucky ones. He works nights in the glitzy West End, and comes home every morning to his beautiful wife and daughter. He's a world away from Karachi and the family he left behind. 

But Khalid likes to gamble, and he likes to win. Twenty pounds on the fruit machine, fifty on a sure-thing horse, a thousand on an investment that seems certain to pay out. Now he's been offered a huge opportunity, a chance to get in early with a new bank, and it looks like he'll finally have his big win.

2003. Alia Quraishi doesn't really remember her dad. After her parents' divorce she hardly saw him, and her mum refuses to talk about her charming ex-husband. So, when he died in what the police wrote off as a sad accident, Alia had no reason to believe there was more going on.

Now almost twenty years have passed and she's tired of only understanding half of who she is. Her dad's death alone and miles from his west London stomping ground doesn't add up with the man she knew. If she's going to find out the truth about her father – and learn about the other half of herself – Alia is going to have to visit his home, a place she's never been, and connect with a family that feel more like strangers.

My Review: 

Firstly, I want to thank the publisher, Head of Zeus and of course NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a fresh story that gripped me from the very beginning.

The story itself is told in two timelines, one is set in the 1980s and follows one of the main characters Khalid Quraishi, who has a nearly perfect life, including a well-paid job and a happy family. Although he has it all he still wants more, the money, the grand life and the fame. This dream of his makes him play the odds, gamble and make deals with very dodgy people and businesses. At the same time, he is also fighting his own demons and addictions and all of that put together slowly destroys his perfect family and life.

The second timeline is set in 2003 and follows Alia Quraishi, Khalid’s daughter, as she is determined to find out what happened to her father in the late 80s when he just disappeared when she was just a little girl. Alia follows her faint memories of her father, which leads her to not only find out the destiny of her father but also allows her to explore her roots, her family relationships and herself.

I loved how the chapters intertwined from one timeline to another to keep the suspension and mystery of what happened to Khalid constantly going. The story itself is very beautifully written and at times with such detailed descriptions, I felt like I was in the book with those characters, looking at the world the way they saw it, living their life and feeling the emotions they felt. Honestly, not many books make me feel like I am in the story together with the characters, and that is one of the things that made this book really stand out for me.

I also really liked how history and life in London's West End and then the BCCI scandal was included in this book to keep that tension and mystery surrounding the life that Khalid lead throughout the book. I didn’t know much about the 80s in the UK and this book really taught me a lot about that time, especially how life was back then in London for the higher class and minority groups.

I must note that Alia’s character left a big impression on me because she grew so much as a character as the book progressed. As she learned more about her family, her father and the past, she found a sense of belonging and finally realised who she really is and for me, that is one of many strong messages that this book was trying to convey to the readers.

Although, because the book was so gripping and the build-up to the end was so good, I was a tad disappointed by the ending. I think I just expected some sort of wow factor or an exciting twist at the end…However, the ending was still very good and made me sit and think for a while about everything that happened in this book

Overall, it was a brilliant book, with beautifully crafted characters and a gripping storyline. I recommend this book, as it is a story that explores family, relationships, different generations, and much more…. A book that should be an addition to everyone’s 2022 TBR book list.

This review was first published on NetGalley and can be found on:

 https://www.netgalley.co.uk/book/239298/review/959200

About an Author: 

Yasmin Cordery Khan is a historian and broadcaster. She is the author of The Great Partition (for which she won the Gladstone Prize for History), and The Raj at War, and has written for the Guardian and the Observer. Edgware Road is her first novel. 

https://headofzeus.com/books/9781801107341