The Road Back by Liz Harris

• Received for review
• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Choc Lit (7 Sep 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906931674
• ISBN-13: 978-1906931674
• The Road Back is a split era novel set in the 1950s and 1995; it's a novel about relationships and how the past impacts upon the present. Set against a cultural background rarely featured in novels - that of the Buddhist part of Ladakh, a country to the west of Tibet - it tells of a passion that crosses cultures, of a love that lasts a lifetime, and of hope that can only come from revisiting the past.
  
  When Patricia accompanies her father, Major George Carstairs, on a trip to Ladakh, north of the Himalayas, in the early 1960s, she sees it as a chance to step out from the shadow of her dead brother, James, and finally to win her father’s love.
  
  What she doesn’t expect to do is meet Kalden – a local man destined by circumstances beyond his control to be a monk, but fated to be the love of her life.
  
  Despite her father’s fury, the lovers are determined to be together, but their plans go tragically awry, and thirty -two years later a young woman comes knocking at Patricia’s door, looking for answers.
  
  The Road Back is a love story that spans two continents. It tells of a passion that crosses cultures, of a love that endures for a lifetime, and of the hope that can only come from revisiting the past.
• Cover:  I love this cover, it's such a beautiful, relevant, scenic cover.
• I really enjoyed this book.  It has a beautiful, different setting.  I've never read a book set in Ladakh before- hadn't even heard of it, so it was really interesting and refreshing.
• I found the first 100 pages of build up slow, I appreciated a little background on both Patricia and Kalden but I just felt there was a little too much, and then the actual romance between them was rushed.  I wanted a little bit more  between them.
• The first half of the book we have both characters perspectives, but the second half we don't get Kalden's, and I missed it.
• Patricia was a hard character for me to like, I felt she didn't fight for what she wanted enough.  I know that for a young girl in the 1960s things were different, but I still felt she was a weak character.
• Over all I give The Road Back 4/5 stars.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading about somewhere different, a beautiful romance in a beautiful setting and it really made me want to believe that there is true love that can span anything.