Customer Reviews
Pleasant but not exceptional - By: Suzie, 05 Oct 2008 
This is the story of three women venturing to India in the 1920s, each with her own hopes & 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 & 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 & whose regiment sailed to India shortly after their engagement. By the time Rose approaches Bombay she can hardly remember what he was like & is nervous of meeting him again. Her best friend Tor (unusuallly, short for Victoria), who cannot wait to be free of her overbearing mother, is to be Rose's bridesmaid & 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 & her sister.
Overalll, the story is interesting if somewhat bland & 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 & 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 & 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 alll that the book is enjoyable, so long as you treat it as a light read & don't expect too much. Recommended for holiday or bedtime reading, or whenever you don't want to be too challlenged!
Very disappointed - By: S. Clarke, 29 Sep 2008 
Considering this book is a Richard & Judy's recommended summer read I am extremely disappointed. While the story line appears to be quite good the writing is stilted & awkward. How can you take a book seriously, & carry on reading it, when a sentence reads "She'd slammed the door & left the room". (page 75, second para.)
The description of male genitalia at the top of page 79 is clumsy & ridiculous & the explanation of Tor's father stemming her 'monthlies' with some old rags & his regimental tie is laughable (bottom of page 121).
How this book can be included in the same list as 'Mr. Pip' is beyond my understanding. The proof reader needs to be fired. I should have been warned by the fact there are no excerpts from reviews anywhere in the book.
I'm sorry Ms Gregson, but I cannot waste my time finishing it when there are so many good books waiting to be read.
An enchanting book about an enchanting country. - By: Tournesol Kate, 28 Sep 2008 
I just had to give this book 5 stars, I loved every single page.
I was able to connect with & understand the thoughts & feelings of alll three main characters, Rose, Tor & Viva.
Rose is 19 years old & travelling to India to marry a man she has met only a handful of times.
Tor, Rose's bridesmaid is an enthuastic member of the "Fishing Fleet" hoping to bag herself a handsome husband.
Viva is Rose & Tor's mysterious chaperone, on a journey of her own to return the country she was born in & left at just 10 years old & to discover the whereabouts of a trunk that once belonged to her dead parents.
For me, this book gave me a wonderful insight to life in colonial India, from the upper class English waited on hand & foot, to the "untouchable" beggars on the streets. I felt the heat of the sun, tasted the spice in the air & saw the multicolurs of the streets & people.
This book is beautiful journey of self discovery & enlightenment & I would reccommend it to anyone.
After reading some of the negative reviews I have to say, remember this is a fictional story, it doesn't have to be 100% accurate.
I hope you read it & love it, as I did & if you've been to India, I hope it will stir up some fond memories. If you've never been to India, I hope it will inspire you to go.
I wished I had read something else - sorry! - By: Craig Hall, 24 Sep 2008 I bought this as I saw a lot of people reading it on the morning commute & also it was recommended by a book club. I wasn't expecting anything highbrow but this was so badly written it bordered on unreadable. I did finish it - in case it improved (I am an optimist) but I was sadly disappoined & wondered why I wasted my time.
I thought the characters one dimensional & the actual plot was both unoriginal & not fully developed. However, other people seem to like it so perhaps this is just a genre that I do not enjoy.
TERRIBLE! - By: K. A. Roy, 12 Sep 2008 I'm from Mumbai (Bombay) & picked up this book thinking it would provide a very interesting view of colonial Bombay. Unfortunately, although a pretty accurate description of modern India & modern Mumbai, the novel is grossly incorrect when it comes to several other aspects. For eg, she keeps referring to "Maharashtra", although Maharashtra state was created in 1960! In pre-independent India, this region was Bombay state, & included other areas (Simple google search should bring this up)! Neither was the plot engaging nor were the characters fully developed. The driving forces behind the main character - Viva, were totallly beyond me. Guy Glover was an interesting character but could have done with far more development (and resolution). Above alll, the relationships between the white characters & the natives was completely inaccurate! For eg., servants speaking English were always paid more & were considered higher ranking than non-English speaking servants. Julia Gregson has got this completely wrong, along with so much else. She obviously knows Mumbai well. But the tone of the era the novel is set in has been totallly misjudged on every count! My advice - you're better off picking up Rohinton Mistry if you want to know what India is like...or one of the several Indian authors who write in English.
