Kurinji Flowers by Clare Flynn

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Kindle Unlimited

Read: August 10, 2015

It is 1936. Ginny Dunbar, an 18-year-old debutante and amateur artist, has been exploited for years by a charismatic, older man. The fallout from this abusive relationship jeopardises her future. Ginny gets a second chance with a new start living on a tea plantation in India. Left to cope with the repercussions of her past, Ginny has to battle her inner demons, the expectations of her husband, mother-in-law, and colonial British society, and her prejudices towards India and its people. Set in South India during World War II and India's struggle for independence, Kurinji Flowers traces a young woman’s journey through loss, loneliness, hope, and betrayal to unexpected love and self-discovery. 

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Kurinji Flowers by Suresh Krishna

The Kindle Unlimited catalog is chock full of titles. I've browsed it a couple of times and bookmarked more than a few promising pieces, among them, Clare Flynn's Kurinji Flowers. None of my friends had read it, but the premise sounded different and I loved the idea of a WWII story set in a nontraditional locale so I threw caution to the wind and checked it out.

Fortune, it's said, favors the bold and my daring was justly rewarded. I felt certain aspects of the novel could have been stronger, but I genuinely appreciated a lot of Flynn's ideas and admired much of the material she incorporated into Ginny's story. The social structure of the British, its contrast to that of the natives, and the inevitable struggle between the two was particularly noteworthy. I felt the relationship between Ginny and her mother struck a very intriguing note and I liked the subtle way that politics influenced events as the story progressed. 

Not to downplay Ginny, but I was fascinated by three of Flynn's male characters. Hector is a flat out brilliant addition to the piece. His character arc really appealed to me and I felt Flynn's treatment of his trials both appropriate to the period and sensitive to the subject matter. Rupert is a disgusting example of humanity, but such individuals do exist and despite my distaste, I admit a certain appreciation for Flynn's depiction of his depraved personality. I genuinely disliked him and right or wrong, my lack indifference speaks to a penetrating characterization and that is something I feel all authors should strive for. Tony rounds out the trio and though I felt his dialogue annoyingly reminiscent of Phil in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I felt his emotional journey the most engaging of the narrative. He is arrogant, but weak, sheltered and naive. He strives to fulfill society's expectations, but he is woefully ill-prepared to do so. I might be alone here, but I liked seeing so much emotional conflict and individual struggle in a male character. I personally thought it a refreshing change of pace and lent a certain authenticity to him and his role. 

Thematically, I liked what Flynn presented, but I'm not ashamed to say I felt there was too much going on. There is a lot of great concept material within these pages, but the various concepts compete for the reader's attention and I don't think any is explored as thoroughly as it could have been. Looking back, I certainly appreciate where the story went, but I can't help wishing Flynn hadn't tried to fit many underlying motifs into a single piece. Not to sound picky, but I honing in and really developing one or two of these ideas would have been more satisfying on the reader's end.

That said, I've no regrets over the time I spent with Kurinji Flowers. I found the novel original and thought-provoking and look forward to reading more of Flynn's work. 

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"Because we can. It's called running the empire. We've been getting away with it for centuries. But our days are numbered. It's only a matter of time before we have to throw in and give them what they want - what is, after all, their right. Then, they'll probably kick the lot of us out. They'll be glad to see the back of us."

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Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: February 6, 2015

When the British Empire sets its sights on India in the 1850s, it expects a quick and easy conquest. After all, India is not even a country, but a collection of kingdoms on the subcontinent. But when the British arrive in the Kingdom of Jhansi, expecting its queen to forfeit her crown, they are met with a surprise. Instead of surrendering, Queen Lakshmi raises two armies—one male, one female—and rides into battle like Joan of Arc. Although her soldiers are little match against superior British weaponry and training, Lakshmi fights against an empire determined to take away the land she loves. Told from the perspective of Sita, one of the guards in Lakshmi's all-female army and the queen’s most trusted warrior, The Last Queen of India traces the astonishing tale of a fearless ruler making her way in a world dominated by men. In the tradition of her bestselling novel Nefertiti, which Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, called “a heroic story with a very human heart,” Michelle Moran once again brings a time and place rarely explored in historical fiction to rich, vibrant life. 

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Rani of Jhansi

I knew nothing about Queen Lakshmi or the Indian Rebellion of 1857 when I picked up Michelle Moran’s Rebel Queen. My eye was drawn to the unusual locale and an eagerness to experience a story that was both foreign and entirely unfamiliar. I’d enjoyed Moran’s work in the past and was optimistic of my prospects, but looking back I can’t help feeling the reality fell short of my expectations.

In theory, Sita was a well-positioned narrator, but I don’t feel Moran’s treatment of the character lived up to the jacket description. Sita spends relatively little one-on-one time with Queen Lakshmi and much like Varvara in Eva Stachniak’s The Winter Palace, is wholly removed from the queen during the most exciting and important events of the narrative. The emotional and at times physical distance between Moran’s heroine and her headliner is substantial and I felt that fact limited the author’s ability to convincingly develop the queen’s complexities and personal views. 

I was further frustrated by the pacing and tone of the narrative. I truly appreciated the cultural insight Moran offered throughout the text, but I spent most of my reading waiting for something to happen. Eighty percent of the novel focuses on some form of sisterhood and that’s great, but I personally found the quiet intimacy of those relationships tedious and dull. I crave movement, action, political tension and urgency, but such moments didn’t arrive till the eleventh hour and felt exceeding awkward tacked on in final moments of Sita’s story.

At the end of the day, I learned a lot from Rebel Queen, but I can’t help wondering if my personal tastes would be better satisfied by the work of John Masters or Christopher Nicole. I don’t regret the time I spent with this book, but I don’t think it Moran’s strongest release and would have reservations recommending it forward.

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“We've all done things we'd rather keep in the dark. It's only by shedding light on them that our demons can disappear.”

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Behind the Forgotten Front, A WWII Novel by Barbara Hawkins

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Read: May 9, 2015

It’s 1942 and Harry Flynn leaves behind the love of his life to journey into a world of tigers, elephants, and Himalayan Mountains. Here he must take risks if he is to survive. He enlists to fight in the war, expecting to find the thrill of danger and honor of military service. Instead of a fighting position, Harry is sent to the Forgotten Front in the Indian subcontinent as an ordinary supply officer. There, General Joseph ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell is constructing a ‘road to nowhere’ through Japanese-occupied Burma. The general will do anything to get the road built. In this exotic world with Naga headhunters, opium smoking kachin tribesmen, and marauders who scorn both life and death,Harry forges unlikely friendships. He’s also forced to obey orders that challenge his principles and is torn between being true to himself or ‘no man at all.’ Not willing to let Uncle Sam needlessly condemn the road crew to death, he rebels. He tries to sabotage the road’s progress where an all-black construction regiment is losing a man a mile due to disease and crumbling lopes. Then a commanding officer spots his unconventional skills. Immediately he’s transferred to America’s first guerrilla-supported unit: Merrill’s Marauders and later the Mars Task Force. Here, he must entrust his life to others. During a time when boys were forced to come of age on the battlefield, Harry must find what makes his life worth living or die. The lessons learned in World War II apply to all wars, where men walk away carrying unspeakable memories and lives that 'could have been' haunt those that lived. Behind the Forgotten Front brings them all back to life and shows that history is about facts driven by passions and sometimes the mistakes of real people. 

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I love starting off my reviews with confessions and today is no exception. When the offer came to review Behind the Forgotten Front, A WWII Novel by Barbara Hawkins, I was intrigued, but I was also skeptical. I’m a sucker for WWII novels, but the cover art wasn’t doing it for me. I was hesitant and questioned what it was I’d gotten myself into. Boy do I love being proved wrong. 

For the record, Hawkins style took me a while to get into, but in terms of content, I loved everything about this piece. The exotic setting added a great deal of perspective to the conflict and lent the narrative a refreshing sense of originality. There is also a lot of internal conflict in Harry Flynn and I really appreciated the insight that offered to men of this particular generation. He’s a complex character I thought Hawkins did a great job illustrating the layers of his personality. 

In short, Behind the Forgotten Front was not what I expected. It proved me wrong in the best possible way and I greatly enjoyed the time I spent with it. I’m still not a fan of the cover, but I’d easily recommend the piece to anyone with an interest in WWII fiction. 

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“It’s not guts you’re going to need— its smarts, in case we’re walking into a trap. All I want is to go home.”

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Mist of Midnight by Sandra Byrd

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley/Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Read: February 13, 2015

In the first of a brand-new series set in Victorian England, a young woman returns home from India after the death of her family to discover her identity and inheritance are challenged by the man who holds her future in his hands. Rebecca Ravenshaw, daughter of missionaries, spent most of her life in India. Following the death of her family in the Indian Mutiny, Rebecca returns to claim her family estate in Hampshire, England. Upon her return, people are surprised to see her… and highly suspicious. Less than a year earlier, an imposter had arrived with an Indian servant and assumed not only Rebecca’s name, but her home and incomes. That pretender died within months of her arrival; the servant fled to London as the young woman was hastily buried at midnight. The locals believe that perhaps she, Rebecca, is the real imposter. Her home and her father’s investments reverted to a distant relative, the darkly charming Captain Luke Whitfield, who quickly took over. Against her best intentions, Rebecca begins to fall in love with Luke, but she is forced to question his motives—does he love her or does he just want Headbourne House? If Luke is simply after the property, as everyone suspects, will she suffer a similar fate as the first “Rebecca”? A captivating Gothic love story set against a backdrop of intrigue and danger, Mist of Midnight will leave you breathless.

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Author Sandra Byrd has been in my tbr for a while and though I own two of her earlier novels, Mist of Midnight marks my first taste of her work and I'm happy to report I found the experience quite enjoyable. 

First and foremost, I really liked how Byrd used identity theft in the context of this story. I'm used to seeing 19th century murder mysteries and I thought impersonation a fun and refreshing departure from that norm. The pacing was a little slow for me personally and I predicted the ending long before the final page, but I liked how Byrd cast suspicion on multiple characters and how she played with ambiguity over the course of narrative. 

Mist of Midnight is marketed as Christian lit, but Byrd's religious themes are subtle at best and she never allows faith to overwhelm the story. She's not at all preachy and that really appealed to me as a reader. I was also drawn to the blend of culture she incorporated in the fabric of the novel and the contrast she illustrated between Rebecca's life in India and her efforts to find her place in England. 

Though set in different eras, I think Mist of Midnight makes a nice companion to The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins and would easily recommend its author alongside Julie Klassen and Roseanna M. White.

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Peace and happiness. Security. All that was mine until the Indian mutineers rode in; they said they wanted to reclaim their land, we said we were innocent: sent to serve, not steal. There was truth and misunderstanding on both sides. They’d killed my parents, they’d smothered my hopes. Instead of robbing me of my dreams...

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Check Out All the Stops on Sandra Byrd's Mist of Midnight Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, March 2
Review & Giveaway at Unshelfish
Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, March 3
Review at A Chick Who Reads
Review & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Wednesday, March 4
Review at Library of Clean Reads
Review at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Thursday, March 5
Review at Reading the Past
Review & Giveaway at A Literary Vacation
Review & Guest Post at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Friday, March 6
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Monday, March 9
Review & Giveaway at Historical Readings & Views

Tuesday, March 10
Review at Just One More Chapter
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Wednesday, March 11
Review & Giveaway at The Lit Bitch

Thursday, March 12
Review at Book Drunkard
Spotlight at Books and Benches

Saturday, March 14
Review & Giveaway at Forever Ashley

Monday, March 16
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Tuesday, March 17
Review at Layered Pages

Wednesday, March 18
Review at The Eclectic Reader
Review at The Book Binder’s Daughter

Thursday, March 19
Review at CelticLady’s Reviews
Guest Post & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Friday, March 20
Interview & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

The Wake of the Lorelei Lee: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, On Her Way to Botany Bay by L.A. Meyer

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Local Library 

Read: Jan. 12, 2012 

Jacky Faber, rich from her exploits diving for Spanish gold, has purchased the Lorelei Lee to carry passengers across the Atlantic. Believing she has been absolved of past sins against the Crown, Jacky docks in London to take on her crew, but is instead arrested and sentenced to life in the newly formed penal colony in Australia. To add insult to injury, the Lorelei Lee is confiscated to carry Jacky and more than 200 female convicts to populate New South Wales. Not one to give in to self pity, Jacky rallies her sisters to "better" their position--resulting in wild escapades, brushes with danger, and much hilarity. Will Jacky find herself a founding mother of New South Wales, Australia? Not if she has anything to do about it!

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*** NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Please take heed and proceed at your own risk. 

The Lady Juliana in tow of the Pallas Frigate

I rarely do so but I fear the time has come to raise the white flag in surrender. After eight books I am thoroughly exasperated with Jacky Faber and company. Her adventures may hold the attention and imaginations of legions of others but I find myself compelled to admit defeat and make haste to the nearest life boat. The series has been floundering for some time and while Meyer tackled some more mature subject matter in The Wake of the Lorelei Lee I felt it was too little too late.

The book takes its premise from the voyage of the Lady Juliana (aka the Lady Julian), a ship that transported more than 200 female convicts to New South Wales in 1789. Mrs. Barnsley and little Mary Wade were both passengers on the vessel. The Chinese pirate Ching Shih is another historic figure. Now I love Meyer’s ability to weave history into his stories; these tidbits, down to the traditional songs, are my favorite aspects of his work. I love meeting these characters that would otherwise be forgotten to history. It is Meyer’s wayward heroine I have grown tired of.

The now sixteen year old Jacky is very much the same twelve year old we met in Bloody Jack. She has not grown or developed as I expected and I find her lack of maturity grates my nerves. She does not learn from her experiences or mistakes. She still acts impulsively and without much thought to the outcome of her actions. It doesn’t help that I find her to be a hypocritical snipe. She insists every female of her acquaintance strive for some semblance of respectability but applies no such standard to her own behavior. Her comments to Jaimy carry similar undertones as she continues to berate him for his single indiscretion while she is free to flirt and parade her bum in front of any man with a coin for her purse.

Jacky’s adventures have also stagnated. At the close of each book she has wormed her way out of trouble but within a few chapters of the next installment she is inexplicably ensnared in it once again. She is continually reuniting and being torn apart from Jaimy. Her enemies are remarkably similar and have started to run together. It doesn’t help that Jacky is universally more talented and intelligent than those around her… can someone please explain to me how a sixteen year old is more adept than every other sailor, performer, spy and soldier on the planet?

Each volume features such meager changes to cast, situation and local that I can't force myself to continue the series any longer, especially since Meyer is expected to release the tenth installment this fall. With no end in sight I feel I have no choice but to jump ship. Farewell Jacky, fair winds and following seas and long may your big jib draw.

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Ever the showgirl I dart over to the anchor, slap my rump down on it, slide my goggles up onto my forehead so I'll look more appealing, a ride up in grand style.

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