A Change of Heart is Sonali Dev’s third novel, and it is far darker than her previous novels, A Bollywood Affair and The Bollywood Bride. It tells the story of two terribly damaged people with a faint but real change of overcoming pain and deception to heal each other.
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Dr. Nikhil Joshi (whom we met in Bollywood Bride) has spent the past two years as medical officer on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, wallowing in grief, guilt, and Jack 
Daniels since the death of his wife, Jen, who was brutally murdered on the street in Mumbai. One night on the ship he sees a woman who resembles Jen. Her name is Jess, and she tells him that Jen’s heart is beating in her chest; she has the scar to prove it.
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Unlike Nik, who grew up in a comfortable and loving Indian American family in Chicago, Jess has moved from Kathmandu to Calcutta to Mumbai, fleeing poverty and violence, not always successfully. Now she has a decent job as a chorus dancer in Bollywood films, a seven-year-old son who must never know how he was conceived, and a mission to find the evidence of an organ theft ring that Jen had gathered and died for, no matter what it takes.
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Nik and Jess’ relationship, from the cruise ship to their search for the missing evidence among Jen’s belongings in Chicago, is painful and hard. The novel depicts violence against women as well as the organized organ theft Jen had discovered.
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A Change of Heart is a far darker book than I usually enjoy, but it is deeply emotional and beautifully written, and I couldn’t put it down until all its mysteries were untangled.
Kay Hudson 