I am so pleased to have found this book,"The Twentieth Wife". This novel was excellently recommended by another blogger, "Embroider the Silence". Be sure to check out her blog and read all the great writings going on there...A wonderful romance set in the beauty and splendor of the Mughal Empire in India (1526-1858). For three and a half centuries, the Taj Mahal has haunted our imaginations. It is a tomb built by a grieving king of the Mughal Empire (1526-1858) in India in memory of his beloved wife.But it was this woman's aunt, an empress in her own right, who was the most powerful queen of that dynasty. The Twentieth Wife is the story of this Empress Nur Jahan.
After reading her review, I picked it up from the Library on a Sunday afternoon and finished it that Friday. I love those books that you can just loose yourself in. Although, I definitely can't do this all the time. It just so happened that everyone in my family was sick and so it made it easier to indulge myself.
This book was appealing to me because of my interest in the work that my friend Leah does in India. I always find it interesting to hear about it's culture. Then as a little girl I enjoyed the dressing up in pretty fabrics and pretending to be royalty. Overall this was a pretty clean book - as love stories go, with not much in graphic descriptions.
Here is another review:
"In The Twentieth Wife, Indu Sundaresan has...chosen [characters who] are familiar but never have they been quite so human, fallible and fascinating...Sundaresan attempts to bring our history to us in a highly palatable form...The vignettes of court life, the endless feuds, the revolts, the politics of the zenana, and the pastimes of the kings, their queens, concubines and courtiers are opulently displayed in her pages...Sundaresan presents a variety of characters that are legendary, yet human and believable and who dominate the colourful canvas of the times that she has chosen to represent...Sundaresan's debut novel is well researched and presented and the reader waits for her presentation of court life in her promised sequel to this novel..."
—The Sunday Tribune (India)
So now I'm off to find the sequel titled "The Feast of Roses".
1 comment:
I also bought the book after Kim's recommendation. It is next on my list to read after I finish "The Inheritance of Loss"... about 2/3 of the way through that one. :)
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