Book Review - A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O'Neal

My Review

A Thousand Painted Hours is a historical novel told in two timelines -- early 1900's colonial India and London, 1940 during the Blitz.  Elsie Turner lives in India with her parents when she is a young girl.  She has a strong connection with a young prince her age, Tanveer Singh.  Friendship turns to love, but they are separated when the Turner family moves back to England.  They have other relationships but their bond remains strong over the decades ... still longing to be together.

I wanted to read A Thousand Painted Hours because I love historical fiction.  I am interested in both early 1900's India and the World War II time period, so this novel was particularly appealing.

Elsie and Tanveer are both compelling characters.  The connection between them is so strong and the scenes of them together as adults are electric.  They are separated most of their adult life and part of their story is told in letters.  This novel is so much about absence and not being with the person you love.  Elsie's friend remarks:  "Your prince is a fantasy, my dear.  It's easy to love someone at a distance" (p. 213).  Later when they are briefly reunited, Tanveer tells Elsie, "The world has color again" (p. 244).

This is my first read by Barbara O'Neal and I will certainly look for her other books.  The storytelling is beautiful - with both vivid descriptions and well drawn characters.  

I love sweeping historical sagas that move through the decades, and enjoyed that aspect of this novel.  It is a long book but I found it a fast read.

I recommend A Thousand Painted Hours for fans of historical fiction, and especially anyone interested in India or England in the first half of the 1900's.

Book Synopsis

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows—and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Author Bio

Barbara O’Neal is the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of twenty novels of women’s fiction, including the #1 Amazon Charts bestseller When We Believed in Mermaids, as well as The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth, Memories of the Lost, This Place of Wonder, and The Starfish Sisters. Her award-winning books have been published in more than two dozen countries. She lives on the wild Oregon Coast with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent. For more information, visit www.barbaraoneal.com.