River of Smoke (Ibis Trilogy #2)
Amitav Ghosh
In 1838, the Ibis, carrying a cargo of convicts and labourers, falls victim to a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Among the survivors are Neel, a pampered raja charged with embezzlement; Paulette, a French orphan masquerading as a deck-hand; and Deeti, a widowed poppy grower fleeing India with her lover. Also caught in the storm is Anahita, owned by the wealthy Parsi merchant Bahram Modi, which holds the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India. And the Redruth, which carries Frederick Penrose, a horticulturist determined to track down China's rare and priceless plants. They will all converge in Canton, on the edge of China, as the Opium War begins to rage.
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0Completely captured my imagination, didn’t quite capture my heart.
This book is incredibly impressive - it’s filled with characters and drips with detail all of which is meticulously researched without being weighted down by the superciliousness of veracity. It was also fascinating to read about this time period.
The things that worked less well for me were that struggled to find a character to really hold onto although Neel had grown on me by the end. I also struggled with the narrative arc and how the scenes in Canton (many of which were fantastic and tense) were set within the wider plot. I also didn’t enjoy the letters from Robin as much - this became old quickly.
Overall, worth a read and I’ll probably finish the series
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