East of the Sun
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Review
"this engaging novel perfectly captures the last days of the Raj" (DAILY EXPRESS )
"What a gorgeous read. Exciting, romantic, unpredictable and funny. I didn't want it to end. You'll crave curry for weeks." (Tracey Ullman )
"The Orion staff gave this beautifully written book an overwhelming thumbs up, and it isn't hard to see why" (COUNTRY LIFE )
"a finely written story full of characters you can care about...highly descriptive and persuasively told" (THE LADY )
"a unique and fascinating historical novel" (PRIMA )
"For passion in an exotic landscape, check out Julia Gregson's East of the Sun" (Giles Foden CONDENAST TRAVELLER )
"Warm, charming, masterfully written and impossible to put down once begun" (AUSTRALIAN WOMENS WEEKLY )
"A richly imagined and thoroughly rewarding book" (NHS MAGAZINE )
"this novel is utterly engaging" (ASIAN AGE )
'Time, place and that pivotal moment in history are skilfully and engrossingly involved' (BEST )
"What a gorgeous read. Exciting, romantic, unpredictable and funny. I didn't want it to end. You'll crave curry for weeks." (Tracey Ullman )
"The Orion staff gave this beautifully written book an overwhelming thumbs up, and it isn't hard to see why" (COUNTRY LIFE )
"a finely written story full of characters you can care about...highly descriptive and persuasively told" (THE LADY )
"a unique and fascinating historical novel" (PRIMA )
"For passion in an exotic landscape, check out Julia Gregson's East of the Sun" (Giles Foden CONDENAST TRAVELLER )
"Warm, charming, masterfully written and impossible to put down once begun" (AUSTRALIAN WOMENS WEEKLY )
"A richly imagined and thoroughly rewarding book" (NHS MAGAZINE )
"this novel is utterly engaging" (ASIAN AGE )
'Time, place and that pivotal moment in history are skilfully and engrossingly involved' (BEST )
Book Description
An utterly captivating story of three young British women in search of freedom and love in 1920s India
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable picture of colonial India,
By
This review is from: East of the Sun (Paperback)
I have to admit, I picked up East of the Sun from Amazon UK on a sort of blind buy. It was recommended to me because I purchased The Forgotten Garden. Well, one thing turned into another late one night... and all of a sudden I found myself clicking "proceed to checkout." You know how it is.I actually rather glad I made this impulse purchase. Set in 1928 and 1929, East of the Sun is the story of three women who go to India: Rose, a young woman going to get married; her best friend Tor, going to be her bridesmaid and hopeful that she'll find a husband herself; and Viva, a young woman accompanying them on their voyage in order to reclaim a trunk that once belonged to her parents. Also in her care is Guy Glover, an unstable sixteen-year-old, who's just been kicked out of boarding school and who quickly becomes a risk to Viva and her charges. Once the women get to India, nothing is what they expected it to be. Rose's marriage is hardly a bed of roses; and, although the number of English men in India overwhelms the number of women, Tor can't quite get her act together in order to find a husband. As for Viva, her plans to pick up her trunk and leave India derail pretty quickly as Guy Glover's antics get out of hand. The novel is not so much about India as it is about the British in India and the so-called "fishing fleet" of young women who went there to find husbands. The first third of the book is devoted to the voyage out to India (in first class) on the Kaiser-i-Hind, and I thought that part of the book was particularly engaging. The characters are all finely drawn, and I found myself rooting for each of them. It's a very lively and dramatic book, and I couldn't put it down. The story mostly belongs to Viva, but my favorite character above all was Tor--her personality was much more endearing than that of the other characters.' The only setback to this novel is the Guy Glover storyline, which kind of detracts from the story. In all, however, Julia Gregson does a wonderful job of capturing the last days of British colonization in India with a fine eye for detail.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant but not exceptional,
By
This review is from: East of the Sun (Paperback)
This is the story of three women venturing to India in the 1920s, each with her own hopes and dreams, her own fears. While it is pleasant enough - ideal as a holiday read perhaps - it hardly excites or lingers in the memory. The writing is sufficiently fluid not to jar, but there is little to entice the reader back to seek deeper insight, nothing particularly thought-provoking, no phrase or paragraph so poetic that it must be read and re-read for the sheer pleasure of the language.Nineteen-year-old Rose is travelling to India to marry Jack Chandler, an army officer she barely knew before he proposed and whose regiment sailed to India shortly after their engagement. By the time Rose approaches Bombay she can hardly remember what he was like and is nervous of meeting him again. Her best friend Tor (unusually, short for Victoria), who cannot wait to be free of her overbearing mother, is to be Rose's bridesmaid and hopes to find a husband of her own. Viva, the young woman employed as their chaperone, has her own hang-ups about India where she lived as a child before losing both her parents and her sister. Overall, the story is interesting if somewhat bland and there are sections missing that cry out to be told. One such is Rose's wedding. The voyage to India, which dominates the early chapters, is a build-up to the forthcoming marriage, full of Rose's fears and feelings, with a couple of chapters on Jack's perceptions. But the wedding itself is passed over in the briefest description from Tor's viewpoint, without our ever knowing how the bride herself viewed the day. Of the girls' stories, it was Viva's that came most alive and was most fully developed. Tor's story achieved a satisfying roundness, but Rose's seemed to fizzle out as if unfinished, leaving questions unanswered. There were hints but nothing more. Maybe this was deliberate, but for me it left a sense of incompleteness, as if the author had forgotten to add the finishing touches to Rose's viewpoint. For all that the book is enjoyable, so long as you treat it as a light read and don't expect too much. Recommended for holiday or bedtime reading, or whenever you don't want to be too challenged!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well-researched!,
By
This review is from: East of the Sun (Paperback)
Having just read this, and found it fascinating as well as very enjoyable, it was interesting to come to the Amazon site and see what others thought.Knowing something about the subject, I cannot agree with one reviewer, KA Roy, that it is incorrect to refer to people speaking Marathi in 1928 in Bombay. In fact, the majority of people in the area would have spoken Marathi, and neither is it incorrect to call someone Maharashtrian, as the regional political concept was already current in the 19th century. I thought the author seemed to have gone to a great deal of trouble to present an accurate picture of India in the 20s and 30s, and the characters, both English and Indian, had a thoroughly authentic ring to them. This is a great read, and I would strongly recommend it.
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