Books like His Inherited Princess — picked by fans

I love an amnesia trope, and this one delivered!

I couldn’t read fast enough to find out who Zoe really was before her accident and how everything would be revealed. And Jo Watson delivered a rollicking ride filled with feelings–so much feels!–and it just kept getting better, coming together like a tapestry right until the end. It was a journey the heroine went on, and as a reader, I also went along with her, which was magical & so enthralling!

Set in Johannesburg mainly and the South African countryside, it showed normal people living normal lives amid extraordinary circumstances, all with a feel-good, rom-com vibe throughout.

I’m of Indian heritage, and when I see Indian-origin protagonists, I’m on it like white on rice! Add to it another trope: I love the marriage of convenience, and I was hooked.

Now, you can expect Indian protagonists to mean Indian families, usually big, often messy, and definitely loud. I just needed a Bollywood-style soundtrack in the background, and this one would’ve been a perfect blockbuster from Bollywood.

Vash Karuppa also knows how to write feelings, delve deep, and make you feel everything that’s roiling inside her main characters’ hearts. Definitely, a thrilling, colourful, boisterous ride where love is swept along whether it wants to or not!

Imagine if Bridget Jones had been African–Nigerian, to be more precise, and instead of just a nosy/meddling mother, she had a huge Yoruba family to contend with! I absolutely adored the POV of the heroine, Nifemi, in this tale! I could read her stream-of-consciousness chapter starts forever and not be bored.

Feyi Aina writes with humour and that special touch of "down to Earth" that makes her heroine resonate. Anyone with a big, traditional family–whether Nigerian, Indian, or even Irish–will totally get Nifemi and her struggle to find what love means and where it’s waiting for her.

Another one with the amnesia trope (I told you it’s a fave of mine!) Except in this one, the hero wakes up with amnesia, not recalling that his gorgeous wife is his on paper only…Kiru Taye can write angst! Feelings in general, but angst, turmoil, and passion that don’t just mean an opened bedroom door? She delivers.

I loved witnessing the romance brewing here and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it did, everything escalated, yet at no point did it feel like "too much." I also loved how it showed me a slice of Nigeria, in lifestyle, culture, and day-to-day living, that I’d never experienced before, opening my eyes to what life on the African continent is truly like when one looks beyond the trauma and misery overflowing in African literature.

Award-winning novelist Molteno takes us on a mesmerising journey of discovery, tracing the origins of her fictional worlds. From the mountains of Tajikistan to remote parts of Africa, in small English towns or huge Indian literary festivals, she engages with people she meets and is inspired by them. Through these vignettes she threads reflections on the creative process—why we write, and what fiction does for us. Through Marion’s clear and involving writing, we encounter not one but several truly remarkable women, as she weaves the emergence of her writing life into her own much-travelled and absorbing story.

Naipaul's long-form reportage "Crocodiles of Yamoussoukro," included in this collection of essays from around the world, including Africa, taught me to root my stories simply.

When I was struggling to locate the core thread of Stringer, I stumbled upon this essay about the Ivory Coast, and more than the descriptions of the place—often dark and mystical—what moved me most was when Naipaul described his reasons for traveling to the Ivory Coast: in part because he was enamored with his French teacher, an elegant woman wearing an African headdress.

It seemed to me marvelous that a large journey could begin in such a precise, universal moment.

Indian engineers and technologists are among the most sought-after globally, particularly from the elite Indian Institutes of Technology that were originally modeled after MIT. The book traces India’s engagement with MIT from the 1880s to 2000 through the story of Indians who went to MIT to study and their contributions to engineering and industry back in India. It is a fascinating account of a few elite engineers but woven into it is a social, political, economic, and cultural history of modern India. 

The Indian Locomotive Series of four books by Hugh Hughes is a must-have for all rail fans, learners, academics, and researchers. Even if you are not a serious historian and would just want to know more about locomotives in India, this is the key book. Hugh C. Hughes was a teacher by profession, who was a prominent statistician and railway historian of the Indian Railways. He has documented and listed every possible locomotive from the by-gone era that ever worked on rail lines here and has managed to acquire some very rare pictures of those locomotives. I personally recommend the book because it adds to value because the old images of stations and locations along with those old workhorse engines are today really valuable to get a context of how the old station was historically as it is seldom that such photographs are taken by the official machinery of the… show more.

When I came across this book, I was on the point of giving up reading modern novels. Everything I had read recently was such a let-down at the end that sometimes I threw the book across the room in reader rage.

At last, in Rushdie, I found someone who did not disappoint. As I approached the end, I became breathless, worrying that the story was going to sink like a soufflé, but it didn’t. It just kept on rising.

Once upon a time in Fairgrounds, there was a contraption called the Hammer and Bell. It was a test of strength to see if you could make the bell ring. Most couldn’t. Most got the marker some way up the calibrated column only to see it hesitate, then begin its descent. Midnight’s Children made it to the top.

What makes a good ending? For me, it is some transcendent statement of… show more.

I have not come across many books about Indian women in power, but this book is an amazing exploration of how feminine strength can hold up against a deeply patriarchal society and time period.

The story sucked me in as the main character, a young princess coming of age, gets caught up in romance and subterfuge; by the end, the story takes a sad and heartbreaking turn as India’s rich history of its many kingdoms falls to the British Raj.