At Night You Sleep Alone

At Night You Sleep Alone is a new novel by Parkash Sohal. It is his first novel in English, having written novels previously in Punjabi and Hindi.

The novel is set in India in the 1960s. It relates the story of a love that was born in the innocence of the young.

It is a happy, idyllic love between two soulmates, Parkash and Nirmal who knew that they were destined to be together forever.

However, Nirmal's mother, who is a politician, takes a decision, apparently a tiny one, that sets of a chain of events that spell disaster for both Parkash and Nirmal.

It causes Nirmsal to be forced into a life that is horrendously different from what she could ever have imagined. And unfortunately there is no place her soulmate, Parkash, in this, her new life.

It seems now that Nirmal's life must depend entirely upon the fanciers and whims of her mother.

But what will her mother do? Tend to the needs of her daughter? Save the honour of her daughter?  Or sacrifice her daughter to her own political career?

A couple of decades pass and eventually an older and wiser Parkash is suddenly faced by his own past and by what he had thought would be his destiny.

But could there be salvation? Could the past be re-imagined as the future? Could there, after all these years, be even one glimmer of hope for the love story of Nirmal and Parkash?

Your reviewer will not reveal any more, but suffice to say that he was left with several tears in his eye at the end of this beautifully and sensitively written book.

It is published by Matador at £8.99 and is available for purchase through the That's Books and Entertainment online shop, which you will find to the right hand side of this review.