The Other Man
by Farhad J. DadyburjorGenres: Love & Romance
Published on October 12, 2021
Pages: 299
Format: eBook Source: Kindle Unlimited
A heartwarming and transporting romantic comedy about finding happy ever after on your own terms.
Heir to his father’s Mumbai business empire, Ved Mehra has money, looks, and status. He is also living as a closeted gay man. Thirty-eight, lonely, still reeling from a breakup, and under pressure from his exasperated mother, Ved agrees to an arranged marriage. He regrettably now faces a doomed future with the perfectly lovely Disha Kapoor.
Then Ved’s world is turned upside down when he meets Carlos Silva, an American on a business trip in India.
As preparations for his wedding get into full swing, Ved finds himself drawn into a relationship he could never have imagined?and ready to take a bold step. Ved is ready to embrace who he is and declare his true feelings regardless of family expectations and staunch traditions. But with his engagement party just days away, and with so much at risk, Ved will have to fight for what he wants?if it’s not too late to get it.
I got this book through an event on Amazon highlighting books from around the world. I was interested in to mainly because it was book about a gay relationship that was actually written by a man. You’d think that would be a fairly normal thing but most of the gay romance books I see are written by women.
I wouldn’t strictly call this a romance. If it was written about a woman it would be called chick lit. Funny how there isn’t a slightly insulting term for a fluffy sweet story about a man figuring out his place in the world.
This novel is set during the time when gay sex was being decriminalized in India. Ved is facing a choice. Can he come out to his family and friends as a gay man? Will it ruin his career and destroy his relationships with his family? He’s making a decision mostly by putting off making a decision. He’s paralyzed with indecision. This passivity makes him just go along with his mother’s plan to have him marry a wonderful woman. As the engagement plans start to ramp up he meets a man. Now he really needs to decide what he is going to do.
Ved’s passivity was a bit frustrating to read about. Everything was happening to him because he just wouldn’t say anything to anyone about anything. But it was understandable. He was acclimated to a world where being gay was unacceptable. He doesn’t know how to move in a world where that may not be as true anymore.
