Lena goes to the Ionian coast for vacation. She plans on getting her class work ready for the next semester. While there she meets Nina and Elena, a young mother and her daughter, and takes an interest in them and their extended family. She also reflects on her daughters and her mother and their lives.

This is a character study of Lena. She does not come across well. She is mean and selfish. She should not have had children (her ex-husband either.) I found her hard to like and I wanted to be sympathetic, but I couldn't. She was not nice. I could relate to some of her experiences with her mother. I could not relate to why she kept the doll (there are a couple of dolls in the story.) I did not like her and that is rare for me. I finished it because of book club. Not sure I would have otherwise.

This is an interesting book about the women related to the Mughal emperors. I wound up disenchanted with it and think that its reception so far has been perhaps a bit too glowing, but I did learn some interesting things from it.

Essentially, this is a history of a little over 200 years of the Mughal empire in India, from just before their arrival at the beginning of the 16th century, to just after the death of Aurangzeb at the beginning of the 18th. The focus is on the women of the dynasty, who played far more powerful and active roles than western stereotypes would have it. Also, the “harem” (the correct term for the women’s quarters is a zenana) wasn’t exactly teeming with wives and concubines of the emperor; any woman related to him or to his loyal retainers could show up to live there and many did, along with their own entourages and servants.

Particularly in the early years, these women were hardly in purdah: they accompanied the emperor as he traveled around, even to war or on daring escapes across mountains from pursuing armies (this sometimes resulted in wives and children being captured or killed); they traveled from city to city at their own whim; they went on hajj. Even later on, once the zenana became more separate, the women there still wielded considerable power, as they often had independent fortunes, owned trading ships, commissioned monumental buildings, and weighed in with the emperor on issues of public policy. Maham Anaga was essentially regent of part of India for awhile, while Noor Jahan coined her own money and had the authority to issue edicts under her name and with her own seal.

All of which is fascinating, and I’m glad to have learned about these women, but the execution let me down a bit. First, the author covers more than 200 years and a ton of women in just 246 pages of text, which means it’s rushed and often doesn’t get much past generalities. Second, the first third is definitely the best because Mukhoty can rely on the memoirs of Gulbadan, daughter of Babur and relative of the later emperors, which bring a lovely personal touch to the story. In the later portions we don’t have that and so it becomes more distant. It might also be that the earlier women are just more interesting, as many of them led quite dramatic lives while the later ones seem to have mostly stayed behind walls amassing wealth and commissioning buildings in their names.

Third, the author seems to glorify the Mughals overmuch, in a way that comes across as colonialist. We may not think of the Mughals as colonizers because they weren’t European and, unlike the British, at least they kept India’s wealth in the country and acculturated themselves to the place. But still, they rode in from Afghanistan and killed a ton of people to conquer territory for their own power and glory, and continued to do so throughout the existence of the empire. Mukhoty mostly elides the fact that their wars consisted of naked land grabs, and there’s a weird “oh, those Hindus and their barbaric customs” vibe that comes close to suggesting the Hindus needed the Mughals to save them from themselves.

Finally, the book just doesn’t come across as very historically rigorous. Mukhoty’s decision to write the entire history in the present tense is weird and distracting. There’s also a tendency to use the same evocative generalities over and over again; the author is always talking about someone’s glittering, blistering, blinding, incandescent, etc., etc., ambition, which is a fancy way of saying the Mughals loved conquering people and imposing architecture. There are endnotes (though frustratingly, no index) and the author seems to have used at least some primary sources. She also doesn’t run rampant speculating on thoughts and feelings (lack of source material is perhaps why the book covers so many people in so few pages). But I would have appreciated more facts and less editorializing.

In the end, interesting book that opened my eyes to a part of history I didn’t know much about. Could be worthwhile reading if you’re interested in the subject, but ultimately it was frustrating for me because it could have been better.

This was really, really good.

I liked the sadness and the melancholy feel of the story, there are some nice twist and turns along the way and this book has one of my favorite things of all time: a group of nice, decent people, who care for each other and look out for each other. I might actually start the next book in the series right away, because I liked Jackman and his team so much.

And Richard Armitage´s narration was pure perfection. But then, he could read the telephone book to me and it would be great.

I will try to finish this up today, because I am hooked. I really didn´t expect that this would take such a sad turn and I´m dying to know how this book is going to end. 

by William Andrews

This is a powerful story. It's Historical Fiction, based closely on events that actually happened in Korea during WW2 and the Korean war and after. The story of Anna, a Korean war orphan, is fiction but much of her grandmother's story reflects things that happened to real people.

Quite honestly, I cringed when in started out written in present tense. However, the story itself was interesting so I persevered. To my joy, I soon learned that most of the story is told by Anna's grandmother and her history is all in past tense, so I could get sunk into it. I can sort of see how the author thought switching to present tense for Anna's part of the story might work, but it really doesn't. The change is too severe.

A fascinating, though unpleasant story unfolds about the Japanese occupation of Korea and the atrocious treatment of Koreans by their military occupiers. Men were taken off to war, many women were forced to work in factories, but some women were forced to become 'comfort women', as the book description implies. The dehumanising treatment these women received is disturbing to read, yet the historic aspect of it is gripping.

Apart from the main plot of the story, it becomes apparent that there is a mystery involved. What does it mean to be a daughter of the dragon? What does the symbol of the dragon mean? All becomes clear by the end.

This was one of those stories that once I started getting into it, I actually couldn't stop reading. I had tears in my eyes at the end and couldn't bring myself to start reading another book the same day. It taught me about a time and place in history that I knew little about and left me with very strong feelings about the horrors of war, the inhumanity of occupying forces and the human element in the conflicts of nations, especially the abhorrent treatment of women.

I usually mark down a star for present tense writing but not this time. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys reading Historical Fiction.