I loved this book so much! The author gives such a raw view of anxiety, it completely upgraded my expectations for my future reads. This felt authentic and not contrived to fit the storyline which was amazing.
The audio for The Arctic Curry Club was great, the narrator was clear and easy to listen to probably a lot to do with Dani Redd's easygoing narrative style.
The cover of the book says it may cause hunger and this was completely true, the descriptions of the food were wouthwatering - I really enjoyed how this was incorporated in, along with travelling between countries and taking inspiration from them.
I will say to any future readers - this is not the light hearted read the cover makes it out to be! Within this book are some really traumatic experiences however, in my opinion they are done very well and I applaud the author for this.

I was drawn to this book by the cover and I expected a nice light hearted read. Well this book was so much more than that. It dealt with lots of things including mental health issues and relationships. This was such an interesting read and I highly recommend. I listened to this book and the narrator was excellent.

I had a few download issues with the book and by the time it was sorted, the file had unfortunately been achieved. Happy to re-review if it becomes available again.

The Arctic Curry Club written by Dani Redd is a story of Maya a young mixed race woman who has followed her boyfriend Ryan to the Arctic for his dream job. The depressing cold and dark that Maya experiences is very intense and I found listening to this in winter was quite hard and depressing especially as it took about half the book to get to the food! When Maya embraces the Indian food from her mother's culture the plot lightens and the descriptions of food are good, unfortunately it doesn't lighten for very long.
Maya is a sensitive character who seems much younger than her 30 years, a niave view of life has led her to blindly follow Ryan in the search of his dream loosing herself in the process. This reads like a coming of age story, finding out about Maya's Indian heritage, her mental health history and finally herself.
Overall, I found this quite a depressing read, with glimmers of light as the food entered. I expected a far more uplifting story but it didn't quite hit the spot for me. 2.5*
Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for the ARC.

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me an audiobook of this book to read and review. I love reading and making a difference by giving feedback.

This is a beautiful audiobook the narrator has a beautiful voice that is so compatible with the story and the main female. This was so beautiful and I loved this so much it was funny and cosy with a dash of love.

Don’t be fooled by the (gorgeous!) cover with this one - it’s much darker, literally and metaphorically, than you might expect, but such a wonderful story!

When Maya follows her boyfriend Ryan to the Arctic, it triggers a lot of her anxiety - it’s so cold and dark all the time, and she’s scared to go outside alone in case she gets lost or encounters a polar bear. But then after a visit to India to see her father, she discovers her dead mother’s recipe book and finds that as she smells and tastes the recipes, memories of her childhood over there finally come back to her. But the memories of her mother aren’t how her father painted her, and she soon realises there was a reason that she buried it all so deep…

This is such a tender and deep look into mental health conditions and the way trauma can impact us even decades later, with Maya experiencing terrible panic attacks and anxiety about everything. I found a lot of it very relatable as someone who tends to imagine the worst when I’m at a low! Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily describe Maya as a warm character, she felt very real and nuanced, and I loved following her journey as her memories came back and she became more confident in herself.

I also loved the two locations of the Arctic and India - polar (ha!) opposites in every way. I could almost feel the cold and see the impenetrable darkness and loneliness of the Arctic, and then the warmth, noise and hustle of India in comparison. I think the locations are what make this read so unique, and of course, perfect for a Christmas read!

There is romance, and heartwarming friendship, but most of all this is a real journey of self-discovery and an unflinching exploration of mental health conditions. But it’s also got that kind of Eat Pray Love vibe of one woman taking back control of her life and her choices, which will leave you feeling lifted by the end! Gorgeous!

First of all I would like to say I really loved this book, I loved the character of Maya and I loved the slow release of her history throughout the book. However, the narration really annoyed me. I prefer my audiobooks to either be a narration or a dramatisation - this one seemed to be a hybrid of the two and it really badly affected my enjoyment of the story, so much so that I gave up on the narration and bought the book.

I really loved the story and the development of Maya's character throughout the story and the back stories of all the people she meets when she arrives.

The jaxtaposition between Iceland and India really added to the storyline.

I would recommend this book wholeheartedly and if I was scoring for the story itself it would be five stars all day long however my score reflects the narration.

Thank you to Netgalley for supplying me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

When Mayas boyfriend Ryan persuades her to accompany him for the duration of his placement studying polar bears in the Arctic, she doesn't expect her anxiety to affect her and bring a distance between them both. Add to that her father's decision to move to India and his impending marriage, Maya is feeling like she doesn't belong anywhere.

Maya takes the opportunity of a job offer to become a chef at a training camp just outside town and starts to make friends and finds a purpose; creating The Arctic Curry Club. As she finds a way to piece together own identity she also comes to finally understand that her independence ties in with figuring out who she is and where she belongs.

This was a brilliant story that covered the issues of loss, grief and mental illness in a sensitive way.

I am definitely going to try the recipies at the end!

Thank you to Netgalley for the audiobook.

Don't be fooled by the cover this is no rom com, it is instead a heartfelt story of one woman's journey of recovering her lost memories of childhood, the mother she had forgotten and in the process learning to be her true self.
When Maya leaves her life in England behind for a new one with her boyfriend in the Arctic, she feels isolated and beyond cold. But when she goes to India for her father's wedding she is given her mother's cookbook which opens her eyes and mind to more than she bargained for.
This book was more than I bargained, it covered repressed memory, metal health, self esteem and trauma. The author dealt with these issues brilliantly, making them feel authentic and part of Maya rather than her whole personality. The way Maya was recovering her memories by triggering it with food from her childhood was also very interesting and very real and added another level to the story.
On the whole a satisfying ending to the book and I am so glad I took the chance on this book.
The narrator also brought charm and had a soothing voice which added the the richness of the book.

I really enjoyed this book, led by a female main character, Maya.

Maya has moved to the Arctic for her boyfriend Ryan. It’s a book about romance, cooking curries and family relationships.

The book was a little slow to start with but I did find it an easy read and I liked the characters. I also liked there was a lot around mental health, suicide etc which made it really current.

A nice wintery read.

This unexpectedly poignant book surprised me with the realistic struggles with anxiety and the vivid depictions of the settings, especially the vivid contrasts between Norway and India. I was really transported, whilst feeling great sympathy for Maya. The audio book’s voice was really relaxing, even with the twist halfway through., which was quite a shock. A great fish out of water story!

This was enjoyable and covered some difficult topics sensitively. I found the exploration of the secrets within families compelling, but I did find the attempts to deal with depression and grief we’re very surface level, which I think lost a little of the impact.

The narrator was easy to listen to.

Well this was a lot more than I expected from a festive read, delving in to anxiety, how to live with it and work around it.
I loved the talk about food and the setting, serendipity that I read it straight after another book set in the same area.
Maya's character arc was really strong and I loved that it didn't revolve around having a relationship. How she found what she wanted to do in life and took a leap of faith to make it happen. Positive messages as well as gorgeous setting.
Highly recommend this one

4.5/5 stars rounded up.

British-Indian Maya is almost 30 and lives with debilitating anxiety. It has dictated her life for as long as she can remember, even causing her to give up on her dream career: cheffing. Her boyfriend, Ryan, has been offered a coveted research position in the Arctic. Maya agrees to upend her life and accompany him, but soon discovers she has much more than the freezing temperatures and constant darkness to contend with. In Longyearbyen, Maya is forced to confront her relationships with the people she loves, places she is connected to, her anxiety, her identity, and her tragic, forgotten past.

The Arctic Curry Club is a fabulous debut from Dani Redd. I really enjoyed how intricately she wove examinations of attachments and anchors, to people, place and identity, throughout the story. It was beautifully layered, like a recipe.

Redd's anxiety writing was probably the most authentic (to my own experience, at least) that I've read to date, to the point where I had to take a few breathers here and there. I did not see this as a negative, though, rather the opposite. For me, the best fiction brings to the surface things to process.


*****Spoilers*******

I did predict early on that Ryan would end up being some sort of rat...but I had <i>such a visceral reaction</i> to the scene where Maya walks in on him and Astrid that I felt like I was really there myself. My ears burned up, my heart felt like it would beat its way out, I sweated buckets...I actually had to turn off the recording! I don't remember ever feeling like this reading a novel! Amazing writing!

I also really appreciated that Redd did not let Maya blindly fall into the arms of the next kind guy who came along in Jobin and that they developed a warm friendship following their brief fling. It would have been easy to give her the "Mr Right" ever-after and I was happy that Maya's character was allowed to explore who she was as an individual by the end of the story instead.

******Spoilers end*********


I am a huge fan of food in fiction and so I adored every scene where Maya was cooking, exploring or tasting food or ingredients. I thought the flashbacks to her childhood when tasting food were an interesting element and I was glad it wasn't overdone to the point of feeling like magical realism. The 2 personal recipes included by Dani Redd at the end were a lovely gift and a wonderful touch - I am greatly looking forward to trying them.

Being British and mixed-race myself, I identify strongly with stories where mixed heritage is a central theme. I very much appreciate the feeling of being both and neither at the same time, feeling like a ship without a dock. Redd connects 3 seemingly incompatible corners of the world naturally and seamlessly through Maya. By the end, I had the same wonderful feeling of connection I have when I'm language learning, to people and places I have never met.

I also really enjoyed learning all about the realities of the human existence in a place as seemingly uninhabitable as Svalbard. It really highlighted everything we take for granted, particularly when complaining about the weather!

If I have one small bugbear: considering that I am a similar age, I thought that Maya's character was childish outside of her anxiety, at some points. I did not enjoy the lists that popped up every so often in place of narrative description. I found it a little lazy and it put me in mind of the types of books I read when I was 13!

Overall, The Arctic Curry Club is an intricate examination of what it means to move through and past trauma, and the unbelievable capabilities we all have when we find circumstances we are allowed to thrive in.

Many thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK and Dani Redd for an ARC audio recording of The Arctic Curry Club in exchange for an honest review.

The Arctic Curry Club is a very busy book, with a lot going on. However, this didn’t take away anything from my enjoyment of it. On the contrary, it kept me entertained and guessing throughout.

My only criticism is that some of the narrator’s pronunciations appeared to be incorrect, which irritated me somewhat.

That aside, the story is well-written and addictive. Covering many subjects and situations, the author deals with family secrets, adulterous boyfriends, new countries, new careers, and new friends. Maya, the protagonist in the story, finds out so much about herself as a person, gaining in confidence as the book progresses and discovering just what she wants to do with her life, with a few hiccups along the way.

I love the descriptions of the Arctic, with the Northern Lights and snow-covered landscapes, and how lonely and depressing it can become from one month to the next, with no daylight. Many of us know how it feels to not experience the warmth of the sunshine on our faces for a few weeks. I just cannot imagine months and months with no light, let alone no sun!

I dare you to try to not let your mouth water as Maya cooks some delicious Indian recipes that she has inherited from her late mother’s recipe book. A glass of wine, delicious cooked food, and a snowy landscape. Sounds good to me!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Audio for the opportunity to listen to and review an ARC of The Arctic Curry Club by Dani Redd.

This was not the book ai was expecting. This is not a cosy winter romance, but instead a hard hitting examination of a young woman’s mental illness as she travels to a place of bleak isolation and a discovery of self and reliance through the food recipes of her departed and missed mother . Cold and heat, Food is so very vividly described that the lack of the expected plot hooks was forgiven.

A really fun winter read (or listen if you've got the audio version). I found learing a little about Salvard interesting as was the dip into Indian culture and cookery.

I found that mixing the Arctic way of life with cooking Indian Curry a bizarre idea but it worked in this novel to give us an unusual mash up of a story.

This was such a unique plot. I’ve never read anything quite like this before. The changing life styles, the learning new routines and safety measures, plus the new friendships are all very special. It’s quite a moving story, inspiration really, as the main character is so good - she gives every thing up to start again, and makes a good go of it.
I listened to this as an audio book and found the narrator was very good- loved the way the story was told.

This was a very unexpected book!
I was expecting a fluffy chick lit, romance, “happy ever after” typical Christmas story & this came as an unexpected surprise as it really is none of those!

The story starts with Maya accompanying her boyfriend Ryan to a secondment in the remote Arctic community of Longyearbyen. You have to be practical, determined and committed to live in such harsh conditions through the dark winter months, and Maya isn’t! The story is told from Maya’s perspective & whilst this worked well in the latter half of the book, I struggled with it in the first half as Maya came across as an immature, whining, attention seeking & totally unprepared for what she would find in the Arctic (which didn’t fit with the character that was so fond of planning & making lists!). Whilst I understand that the author was trying to set the scene for Maya’s mental health & what was to follow, it went on too long for me & nearly resulted in me abandoning the book. When Maya travels to India for her father’s wedding, she learns more about her Indian heritage, and unlocks secrets hidden within her mother’s cook book – but will the memories that are triggered give Maya answers or threaten to ruin her relationship with her father?
I liked the journey of self-discovery Maya went on, and how we as readers discovered her story with her. I felt that the ending was very appropriate and enjoyed the relationship changes between Maya & her father. The characters are interesting & whilst some are a little stereotypical, they feel quite real and we get to know them alongside Maya.

I listed to the audiobook with narration by Zoha Rahman, who I believe is an actress who appeared in a Spiderman film … I did like that she is of Asian heritage (albeit Pakistani rather than Indian) which gave some credibility to the character but something about her accent grated on me at times.

Aside from the concept of friends visiting for the weekend (it's a 3 hour flight from Oslo, which from the UK or Paris is 2.5 hours – 6 hours each way if the connections work out is not feasible for a weekend break!) I felt that the author had done good research. The descriptions of the arctic in winter with the 24-hour darkness, the cold, the huskies & the reality of polar bears contrast well with the vivid descriptions of India from the heat to the colour to the “matchmaking aunties” and the street food. In fact food was a huge theme throughout the book & left me hungry! The two bonus recipes at the end were a welcome surprise.

Overall, this is a book that should not be judged by its cover – in fact I wonder if the book cover & “blurb” are quite right as they do suggest something quite different to what you get? I am glad to have read it, but am not sure I would 100% recommend it, as the Mental Health/anxiety at the start just lasted too long for me. It was not entertaining, did not endear me to the main character and the expectation vs reality really threw me. I do feel that people need to be prepared for a fairly hard-hitting book that touches on issues including anxiety & panic attacks, grief, loss, loyalty, loneliness, friendship and childhood trauma.

I couldn't get into the story. Didn't mind the concept but just wasn't for me. I will say that the writing was very good and descriptive though, not to be read on an empty stomach!!