4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting for an adventure/history novel, January 6, 2007
Here is the synopsis:
"Lady Orissa Fane fled England in haste--her only thought to escape her abusive stepmother--and, enlisting her brother's aid, she booked passage for India under an assumed identity. Once there, she would join her uncle, Colonel Henry Hobart. But on board ship was a very handsome and most unpleasant Army Major by the name of Myron Meredith who seemed intent on determining her true identity. Orissa feared she would be discovered and made to return home. Yet the ocean voyage was to be only the first in a series of extraordinary adventures. When she arrived, India was in a state of turmoil. Her uncle and his forces were besieged on the frontier. And Orissa found that her fate mysteriously lay in the hands of that very same Major Meredith!"
I loved the fist half of the book! For some very odd reasons, the Major Meredith always seemed to find her in incriminating circumstances: first, he saw her coming down the staircases of a gentleman's lodgings (her brother) at 6 o'clock in the morning; and then, disguised as a traveling wife in her way home, he found her with Mr. Mahla, her Urdu teacher, alone in the ship star-light while he was holding her hand in a very romantic situation.
But when the ship arrives in India the story changes from the romantic to the adventure type, and you have to read the whole explanation of why Russia was invading India, and the miraculous intervention of England. I read, and read, and read, waiting for the Mayor to appear, and nothing happened, at least, for a couple of chapters, where Orissa was traveling all over the country looking for her uncle, Colonel Hobart, who was relocated with his regiment in another town. BUT! The final lines where they finally find each other are different of what I was used to read. Very unusual of Madame Cartland, she wrote the perfect ending. I personally think she had a very good way of telling the stories but lacked of knocking endings.
Here is one line, when they went on deck one night:
"When I look at the world like this... I feel so...very small, helpless... and alone"
"If that is what is troubling you there is no need for loneliness" He drew her almost roughly against him and kissed her.
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