Under The Jeweled Sky by Alison McQueen – 399 pages
Book Blurb:
London 1957. In a bid to erase her past and build the family she yearns for, Sophie Schofield accepts a wedding proposal from ambitious British diplomat, Lucien Grainger. When he is posted to New Delhi, into the glittering circle of ex-pat high society, old wounds begin to break open as she is confronted with the memory of her first, forbidden love and its devastating consequences. The suffocating conformity of diplomatic life soon closes in on her. This is not the India she fell in love with ten years before when her father was a maharaja’s physician, the India of tigers and scorpions and palaces afloat on shimmering lakes; the India that ripped out her heart as Partition tore the country in two, separating her from her one true love. The past haunts her still, the guilt of her actions, the destruction it wreaked upon her fragile parents, and the boy with the tourmaline eyes. Sophie had never meant to come back, yet the moment she stepped onto India’s burning soil as a newlywed wife, she realized her return was inevitable. And so begins the unraveling of an ill-fated marriage, setting in motion a devastating chain of events that will bring her face to face with a past she tried so desperately to forget, and a future she must fight for.
My review: 3 stars
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Historical romance at the height of India’s Partition to Hindu and Muslim seemed like a great story to be told. However, for me, this book lacked the substance I needed to believe in the mixed race romance (which is key to the plot). I felt there was a lot of telling me how close these two were, rather than through dialogue and actions. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what was missing for me, but sadly, I just couldn’t stay connected. There were snippets of sub-plots that I highly enjoyed such as her escapades with Mrs. Ripperton meeting the maharani. I would’ve loved more background on Sophie’s mom, rather than her dad, to help understand why she was so evil and abusive. It seems Sophie followed in her dad’s footsteps in marriage, so that would’ve been an interesting comparison. Overall the book does a fine job of generally explaining the Partition, giving lush descriptions of live in the Palace and then again during it’s political upheaval. FYI, I’m in the minority on my review, as this book got high ranks from other readers.
Quotes I liked:
There is no use in telling the young that they must be patient, for they have not yet lived long enough to know what patience means and that there is no escaping the ellipse of one’s destiny.
-“Kindness is the hardest thing to bear when one is feeling low.”
-“That is the problem with this country, he thought. You are born to your status to your given caste, and once you have come into its being, you can never leave it, never move up an be seen as better than the life you were birthed into. It was wrong, and once India had been freed, it would have to change.”
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