Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes

March 26, 2012
Woodman’s debut novel (the first in a series) follows a quaint patchwork of characters living in smalltown India, with Jana Bibi at its center. Jana is of Scottish heritage, but was born in India, where she works as a violin tutor. When she learns that she has inherited a house in Hamara Nagar, she promptly moves to the tiny village and settles in just in time to hear that Hamara Nagar is scheduled to be drowned by a dam. She joins forces with other townsfolk—a cast demonstrating India’s unique cultural makeup, from the observant Muslim tailor Feroze and his wife, Zohra, to the enterprising owner of Ramachandran’s Treasure Emporium—to rescue the town. The plan is to make Hamara Nagar a tourist destination, and Jana is chosen to act as the resident soothsayer to draw visitors. Her attempts at fortune telling—and parts of the story—are saved by her wily parrot Mr. Ganguly, whose amusing vocabulary keeps the dialogue entertaining. Woodman has an ear for spoken language and firsthand experience living in India, but her plot line falls flat. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME Entertainment.

April 1, 2012
Memories of the Raj are never far away in an affectionately old-fashioned tale of community life set in the fictional Indian hill town of Hamara Nagar in 1960. It's the town's classification as a "second-rate hill station...of negligible importance" that sets events in motion in Woodman's debut, as citizens either welcome or despair of government plans to construct a dam that will flood the area and their homes. When Indian-born Janet (Jana) Laird, the widow of an American missionary, inherits and then moves into an historical building in Hamara Nagar, she encounters both Hindu and Muslim neighbors including a kindly merchant, a newspaper editor, a philosophical tailor and various wives. The only fly in the social ointment is the villainous police commissioner Bandhu Sharma, a bully and extortionist who, alone in the community, is in favor of the dam. Recruited into the anti-dam campaign, which centers on turning the town into a tourist destination, Janet agrees to open the eponymous fortune-telling salon where, decked out in jewels and costume, with her parrot Mr. Ganguly selecting the cards, she is surprisingly successful. Here, however, the story loses focus, forgets the dam and piles up a sequence of minor crises as individual destinies are tidily resolved in readiness for episode two of the planned series. Good-humored, soft-centered, nostalgic armchair tourism.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2012

When Scotswoman Janet Laird inherits her grandfather's house in India, she meets wacky locals like the Gurkha who plays bagpipes to keep the monkeys quiet. All's well until waters from a proposed government dam threaten to inundate the town, and our card-reading heroine (now called Jana Bibi) sets out to attract tourists by founding Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes. Woodman lived in India for ten years as a child; this series starter could be a hoot.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2012
Woodman's debut novel, the first in a projected series about Jana Bibi, a widow and musician, is a sweet and charming tale set in 1960s India. Her parents were British, but Jana was born and raised in India but then returned to England with her missionary husband only to find she much prefers life in India. When she receives notice that she has inherited her great-grandfather's house, the Jolly Grant House in the remote hill station Hamara Nagar, Jana packs up her parrot, Mr. Ganguly, and her longtime maid and companion, Mary, and off they go. Jana loves the little village and soon finds herself deeply enmeshed in local life, which leads to her involvement in a plan to save the town from being innundated by a proposed dam. The idea is to turn Hamara Nagar into a tourist destination, and Jana does her part by establishing Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes, a fortune-telling business (turns out Mr. Ganguly is quite the seer). With its appealing and somewhat exotic setting, and a colorful cast of engaging characters, from the round and cheerful owner of Ramachandram's Treasure Emporium to the corrupt village police officer, this is a stellar debut bound to charm fans of Alexander McCall Smith, especially his stand-alone La's Orchestra Saves the World (2009).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)