Customer Reviews

COROMANDEL SEA CHANGE, the greengage summer , THE RIVER

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This story is set in Patna Hall, a delightfully old-fashioned hotel on the stunning Coromandel coast in southern India. A local election has filled the hotel with workers for the Root and Flower Party, and the other hotel guests get caught up in the election fever, especially Mary, on her honeymoon, but increasingly fascinated by Krishnan, the Root and Flower candidate. Auntie Sanni, the hotel proprietor is a delightful character, and the rest of the hotel staff are a a fascinating bunch. As election day approaches, anger and jealousy come to the boil as Mary's husband understandably gets more and more fed up about his wife's absorbtion in the election. A gripping story from beginning to end. Warning: do not read this book if you are hungry, there are mouth-watering descriptions of unbearably delicious things to eat throughout the book.

Blackmail, love, drama, tragic events and, as always somewhere in the novels I have by Rumer Godden, somebody's death. The India she gives us is so rich, so wonderful, that I doubt it ever existed outside of the papers of her books. But the characters could be out of any hacker's mystery novel. Blaise, the young hot head who thinks his wife should obey his every wish, Mary, his wife who wants to enjoy life, and so on. Lords, Ladies, complaining Americans, an elephant, we get everything you could ever have in India. Funny enough, no Nuns.

Get it used, make some tea, pick a weekday to read it - I had problems reading over a week because I kept wanting to drop everything and go read it.