It was time to give my debut India novel a makeover and reveal the new cover for Sutra of the Pearl. The scroll motif more accurately depicts the adventure. Although it’s a fiction, the subplot about my character searching for the Notovitch scroll is based on a real-life manuscript found in the 19th century when the Russian explorer travelled to northern India and discovered ancient writings about Jesus’s travels in India to study Buddhism. As a Buddhist practitioner myself, I couldn’t get this story out of my head and so it ended up as part of my first novel set in modern-day India. And while I’m at it here’s another amazing connection between India and Christianity. The ‘Pearl’ reference in my title partly refers to a hymn about the Apostle Thomas’s ministry in India. Yes, Christ sent him there to test his faith and go he did. This gorgeous Saint Thomas Basilica in Chennai, formerly Calcutta, is named after him.