Malaya seems a world away for sixteen-year-old Jasmine, and try as she might, she just cannot seem to settle in Nairobi. With a sympathetic step-mother, Jasmine is allowed to return to her beloved Penang, where she will stay on Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood rubber plantation—little did any of them know what the future had install.
Oh, this book. There are some books, as I am sure you are aware of, that can sweep you away and take you back in time to a place that is beautiful, yet foreign. Add to this magnificent landscape the dreams of a young sixteen-year-old girl and a politically unstable climate. I guess it is no surprise if I say that this book enthralled me. This is a novel that once started cannot be turned away from. It is utterly engrossing from start to finish—the characterisation, the setting, and the story enchanted me.
The historical setting of this novel has been thoroughly researched, and I thought the author has really captured the rising political tensions and the nervousness of the plantation owners. But not only that, Flynn has given her readers a very honest account of a young woman’s take upon the situation. I thought the setting, the historical context, and the characters were wonderfully portrayed.
Jasmine is a protagonist that I really came to adore—she is so young, in some cases naively so, but she knows what she wants and her heart beats for Penang.
This is a novel that kept me up well into the night, and although I have not read the first two books in this series, I did not feel at all lost. Saying that, however, I do feel a desperate desire to read the first two books in the series.
I thought this book was brilliant—and I think you will too.
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Clare Flynn
Clare Flynn is the author of twelve historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former International Marketing Director and strategic management consultant, she is now a full-time writer.
Having lived and worked in London, Paris, Brussels, Milan and Sydney, home is now on the coast, in Sussex, England, where she can watch the sea from her windows. An avid traveller, her books are often set in exotic locations.
Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, Novelists Inc (NINC), ALLi, the Historical Novel Society and the Romantic Novelists Association, where she serves on the committee as the Member Services Officer. When not writing, she loves to read, quilt, paint and play the piano. She continues to travel as widely and as far as possible all over the world.
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