The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran – BENGALURUHistorical novel set around ENGLAND (Birmingham)
Ten Great Books set in SOUTHERN INDIA
15th December 2025
Ten great books set in Southern India. Southern India is a culturally distinct region defined by its ancient Dravidian heritage, lush tropical landscapes, and vibrant traditions. Comprising states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, the region is famous for its majestic Hindu temples featuring towering, intricately carved ‘gopurams’ particularly in cities like Madurai and Thanjavur. This architectural grandeur is matched by the natural beauty of the Western Ghats, the serene backwaters of Kerala, and the expansive coffee plantations of Coorg.
Economically the south is a powerhouse, home to high tech Bengaluru, and thriving hubs for cinema and classical arts like Bharatanatyam. The region’s culinary identity is equally iconic, celebrated for its spicy, coconut-infused dishes and the ubiquitous idli and dosa.
Here is our selection of ten greatbooks set in the Region:
Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments by Hema Sukumar – CHENNAI
Grand Life Apartments is a middle-class apartment block surrounded by lush gardens in the coastal city of Chennai, India. It is the home of Kamala, a pious, soon-to-be retired dentist who spends her days counting down to the annual visits from her daughter who is studying in the UK. Her neighbour, Revathi, is a thirty-two-year-old engineer who is frequently reminded by her mother that she has reached her expiry date in the arranged marriage market. Jason, a British chef, has impulsively moved to India to escape his recent heartbreak in London.
The residents have their own complicated lives to navigate, but what they all have in common is their love of where they live, so when a developer threatens to demolish the apartments and build over the gardens, the community of Grand Life Apartments are brought even closer together to fight for their beautiful home…
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese – KERALA
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning – and in Kerala, water is everywhere.
At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch – known as Big Ammachi – will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship.
A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humour, deep emotion and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
A Sister’s Promise by Renita D’Silva – UDOPI
Two sisters. Bound by blood. Torn apart by love.
My sister – the glue that held our family together and the gatekeeper to the memories of our shared childhood.
The girl I made a pact with – to protect each other for life.
The woman who destroyed my family, my future.
And the only one who can save my daughter.
Set against the dramatic backdrop of India, A Sister’s Promise is a powerful, emotional tale of family secrets, love and the ties that bind sisters together.
Blue-Skinned Gods by S J Sindu – TAMIL NADU
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy named Kalki is born with blue skin. He believes that he is the Hindu god Vishnu and that he can perform miracles. The truth, however, is much darker…
As Kalki struggles to extract himself from under the thumb of his controlling father, he must also reconcile with the idea that everything he’s ever been told might not be true. When his father drags him on a tour to America, Kalki seizes his chance to explore what life as an ordinary man might be like.
Pulled between India and America, and his father’s web of control, Kalki must find his true place in the world.
Hot Stage by Anita Nair – BENGALURU
When elderly Professor Mudgood, a well-known rationalist and fervent critic of right-wing forces in India, is found dead in his home in Bangalore by his daughter, Assistant Commissioner of Police Borei Gowda is quite certain that this is a homicide.
Although all evidence points to the murder being politically motivated, the more Gowda delves into the case, the more convinced he is that it isn’t an assassination. As he and his team launch a parallel investigation, they stumble upon a secret and murky world where there are no rules or mercy. When Gowda’s hand is forced, he takes a calculated risk and infiltrates the sinister domain to bring the truth out into the open… Will he succeed? And at what price?
The Coffer Dams by Kamala Markandaya – SOUTH INDIA
Clinton, founder and head of a firm of international engineers,arrives in India to build a dam, bringing with him his young wife,
Helen, and a strong team of aides and skilled men. They are faced with a formidable challenge, which involves working in daunting mountain and jungle terrain, within a time schedule dictated by the extreme tropical weather. Setbacks occur which bring into focus fundamental differences in the attitudes to life and death of the British bosses and the Indian workers. A timely reminder of the British contempt for Indian lives and for nature.
Check out this piece by Markandaya’s daughter on the publisher’s website : https://www.hoperoadpublishing.com/the-coffer-dams-blog
The Mission House by Carys Davies – OOTY (UDAGAMANDALAM)
Fleeing the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla have taken Hilary under their wing.
The Padre is concerned for Priscilla’s future, and as Hilary’s friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems.
The Mission House boldly and imaginatively explores post-colonial ideas in a world fractured between faith and non-belief, young and old, imperial past and nationalistic present. Tenderly subversive and meticulously crafted, it is is a deeply human fable of the wonders and terrors of connection in a modern world.
A Madras Miasma by Brian Stoddart – CHENNAI
Madras in the 1920s. The British are slowly losing the grip on the subcontinent. The end of the colonial enterprise is in sight and the city on India’s east coast is teeming with intrigue. A grisly murder takes place against the backdrop of political tension and Superintendent Le Fanu, a man of impeccable investigative methods, is called in to find out who killed a respectable young British girl and dumped her in a canal, her veins clogged with morphine.
As Le Fanu, a man forced to keep his own personal relationship a secret for fear of scandal in the face British moral standards, begins to investigate, he quickly slips into a quagmire of Raj politics, rebellion and nefarious criminal activities that threaten not just to bury his case but the fearless detective himself.
The first Detective Le Fanu Adventure, A Madras Miasma, tells a classic tale of murder, corruption and intrigue with a sharp eye on British colonial politics and race relations. It is a story that, like its main protagonist, has its heart firmly in the right place.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – KOTTAYAM
This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother’s factory, and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala. Armed only with the innocence of youth, they fashion a childhood in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher) and their sworn enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun, incumbent grand-aunt).
The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran – BENGALURU
Two families. One city. Too many secrets
Anand is a Bangalore success story: successful, well-married, rich. At least, that’s how he appears. But if his little factory is to grow, he needs land and money and, in the New India, neither of these is easy to find.
Kamala, Anand’s family’s maid, lives perilously close to the edge of disaster. She and her clever teenage son have almost nothing, and their small hopes for self-betterment depend on the contentment of Anand’s wife: a woman to whom whims come easily.
But Kamala’s son keeps bad company. Anand’s marriage is in trouble. And the murky world where crime and land and politics meet is a dangerous place for a good man, particularly one on whom the wellbeing of so many depends.
Enjoy our selection of ten great books set in beautiful Southern India!
Tony for the TripFiction team
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Fabulous and just the best thing on a drab late winter day….