This is beautifully written, and has a cast of diverse characters. This book reads like interconnected short stories, which is not something that I like. I found it hard to keep track of the storylines and the characters.

This book worked really well for me, but I can see that it will leave many people cold.

It worked for me because I know many of the places where it is set - particularly McLeod Ganj and Amritsar - and could picture everything very clearly. I also like books that soak in the atmosphere of place and time more than books where lots of things actually 'happen'.

The book follows four people who have come to attend a wedding - an elderly man, a young yoga teacher, the bride's cousin and a friend of the bride. Each has their own issues and challenges- things they need to do, decisions they need to take, past upsets they need to put to rest or big life changes looming towards them. However, whilst it's true to say there are four protagonists, just two set the story - Reema who is visiting from London and trying to evaluate her relationship with her partner, Robert, and Jackson, the old frail man with his wife's ashes in his suitcase. The two are an unlikely pairing but travel has a habit of throwing unusual people together. Jackson wants to scatter his wife's ashes above the snow line and it's really the wrong time of year for trying that. Together with Yosh and Monica, they drive to the lower parts of the Himalaya - to McLeod Ganj - in search of some snow.

Snow is very symbolic but also rather disinclined to show up on demand. Let's just say that things don't go smoothly.

I liked - but didn't always understand - the flashbacks to Jackson's earlier life, the killing of a young woman in Amritsar, a crush on his landlady, and meeting his wife in the Far East. It takes about one-third of the book for us to learn Reema's challenge.

I offer one piece of feedback to the author/publisher that I hope they might check and if necessary correct. When Reema goes to the Golden Temple, she enters and 'turns right'. Hmm. That's really not going to work. Visitors walk around the temple and its tank in a clockwise direction. Walking right - anti-clockwise - just wouldn't work and would be decidedly odd.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy and apologies for taking such a long time to get around to reading it.