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Average Customer Rating:

Wonderfully enjoyable read

Customer Rating:

Set in a wonderfully well imagined 1920s, this is the story of three young women who travel (first class, by sea) to India. Eighteen-year-old Rose is going to be married, to a young man she hardly knows. Her friend, bubbly, insecure Victoria (Tor) is to be her bridesmaid -- delighted to escape from her domineering, critical mother, she also hopes to find herself a husband. The third, Viva, is a few years older but has managed to get her fare paid by the girls' mothers in return for acting as their chaperone. Brought up in India until the age of eight, Viva has lived in England ever since and has mixed feelings about returning to the country where both her parents and her older sister died. Also in Viva's care on the ship is Guy Glover, an unstable sixteen-year-old, whose peculiar attachment to Viva will be the cause of some very dangerous and frightening events later on. I really liked the way the narrative moved between the three girls' stories, and this technique made the novel even more tantalisingly readable, as when one girl's chapter ends -- often with a bit of a cliff-hanger -- you have to wait for two more chapters to pass until you find out the outcome of whatever situation each has got themselves into (if that makes sense). Being already a lover of India and knowing Bombay a little bit, I found the descriptions of life there all those years ago absolutely fascinating. The choice of historical period was an interesting one -- although it would be another twenty years before India achieved independence, the rumblings are already making themselves felt, Gandhi is already on the scene, and the British are feeling increasingly insecure. Nevertheless, life for these privileged young people is pretty easy and luxurious, though Viva, somewhat impoverished and needing to support herself, comes into contact with a rather different side of Bombay life when she gets a job in an orphanage. Of course there are love stories, some with happy endings and others less so. All in all this is the most marvellously attractive book. Comfort reading, in a sense, but high quality comfort reading. I look forward very much to Julia Gregson's forthcoming Jasmine Nights, and must try to get hold of her earlier novel The Water Horse. An author to watch.

Extremely disappointing	Customer Rating:
As this was a Richard and Judy recommended read, I thought this would be a cracking read. How wrong I was! Very slow; boring two dimensional characters, Im afraid it went to the charity shop before I reached the end. I read two-thirds of it, by which time I was ready to scream with annoyance!

AWFUL! patronising and badly written

Customer Rating:

Like many other reviewers I was looking forward to reading this book and was severely disappointed. The prose is badly written, full of non-sequiturs and in some cases, simple bad grammar ("she might of..." being one such example which stuck in my mind). The treatment of the Indian characters and the protagonists' interaction with them is patronising to say the least. The novel may be set in colonial India but there is no effort made to question the (stereo)typical colonial attitudes and behaviour. Even Viva, the supposed liberal thinker and bohemian, views the Indian children as 'poor but happy'. The characters' motivations are often unclear and the resolutions in the story vary wildly from over-simplified fairy tale (Tor) to no closure whatsoever (Guy Glover). The boat journey over to India, i.e. a couple of weeks, seems to take up around half the novel and the following year in India is rushed through leaving the feeling that all major events are skimmed over (Rose's wedding, the episode with Viva and Mr Azim). The use of both narrative and linguistic cliché became so irritating that I almost couldn't finish the book. The only reason I ploughed on was so that I would feel justified in writing this review in the hope that more people would not be duped into reading this drivel! In summary, terrible. Should never have made it out of the slush pile. Note: I'm afraid I simply can't take seriously a book which contains the line "he took her like a man" in a stream of consciousness passage of an alleged feminist!

Poorly written chick lit	Customer Rating:
I took this book on holiday, and I did finish it, but it was disappointingly badly written and the story was no more than historical chick lit really. I'm interested in this phase of colonial history, but this book told me nothing of interest about that time. An easy read if you're not a demanding reader I suppose.

Excellent historical novel	Customer Rating:
I bought this book for a work trip which meant I would spend a few days away from my family. What a joy it was to be transported into the last days of Colonial India. A really splendid well written book which I kept going back to until I had devoured every last word. The most un-put-downable book I have read for some time. Thought provoking and fabulous storytelling.