Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

[Leah]

Considering how popular yoga is these days, I’m somewhat surprised to find that in all of the 650+ books I’ve read, this is the first novel I’ve read dedicated to yoga. You’d have thought more authors would have jumped on the bandwagon, though I’m glad they haven’t. Tales From The Yoga Studio is Rain Mitchell’s debut novel and is the start of a new series all about 5 friends who are brought together by their love of yoga. There’s Lee, who owns Edendale; Katherine, the masseuse at Edendale; and Graciela, Imani and Stephanie, all who attend Lee’s classes. If there’s one thing I love about debut authors is that if I love the book I’ve got a new author to look out for and after reading Tales From The Yoga Studio, I am massively excited about the second novel in the series because it was really, really good.

Although a lot of focus is indeed on yoga (it’s called Tales From The Yoga Studio and all of the characters just love yoga, what are you expecting but yoga?), if you’re not a yoga fan it doesn’t really matter. I don’t particularly like yoga and part of me still believes it’s for hippies (I know and reading the novel has rather changed that opinion) but I still found Tales From The Yoga Studio to be super absorbing. There’s quite a bit going on in the novel, what with there being five main characters, but after a few pages it’s easy to remember who everyone is and get absorbed in their own battles and troubles. It’s a strangely written novel, with the novel being broken up in three different parts and there being no chapters in between (which if you’re a fan of finishing a chapter before bed, you won’t like because you can’t do that) but it says it all when that’s my only critique.

Lee is the owner of Edendale, the yoga studio that brings all the women together, and is battling to save her marriage to Alan, whilst balancing working at the studio. I liked Lee. As the spearhead of the novel, I liked her wisdom and she was just such a likeable character that you wanted the best for. Katherine is masseuse at Edendale and has beaten her demons to find stability in her life, all that’s missing is love and she has her eye on Conor, the fireman… Katherine intrigued me and I’m looking forward to more from her in the next book because her life is so different to the others. Graciela is a dancer, who spends a lot of her time making sure her mum is OK and was probably my favourite character, she seemed like the underdog to me and I just wanted her to get it all! Imani was a surprise package, an actress who’s having some downtime after a tragedy, and I’m interested in where her character’s going to go after the revelations at the end of the novel! Then, finally, we have Stephanie, a movie-maker and seemed to be a bit forgotten at times in the novel, which was a shame. I thought the balance between them all was just right, though as I said, Stephanie was somewhat forgotten, and it’s definitely a novel that’s set everyone up for the future novel(s), which is what the first book in any series should do.

I absolutely loved Tales From The Yoga Studio. Not only is it a brilliant debut novel, but it’s also a brilliant start to what could be a very lengthy series. It’s just so readable and so enjoyable and from beginning to end, I was hooked and hated to put it down to go to sleep or to do whatever. I can’t wait to read Head Over Heels, the second novel in the series that’ll be released next year. I really do recommend Tales From The Yoga Studio because it had everything – friendship, romance, yoga. It’s one for yoga fans and non-yoga fans and if I was in any kind of shape to do yoga I probably would because despite sounding hippie-ish and despite sounding complicated, the way Mitchell writes about it makes it sound so great. The idea of centering yourself and letting everything go just sounds so intriguing. Alas, it’s probably not going to happen so, instead, I’ll live vicariously through Rain Mitchell’s fabulously entertaining series about yoga, it’s better than doing it!