Book description
A magnificent romantic/historical/adventure novel set in India at the
time of mutiny. The Far Pavilions is a story of 19th Century India, when
the thin patina of English rule held down dangerously turbulent
undercurrents. It is a story about and English man - Ashton
Pelham-Martyn - brought up as a Hindu and his passionate, but dangerous
love for an Indian princess. It's a story of divided loyalties, of
tender camaraderie, of greedy imperialism and of the clash between east
and west. To the burning plains and snow-capped mountains of this great,
humming continent, M. M. Kaye brings her quite exceptional gift of
immediacy and meticulous historical accuracy, plus her insight into the
human heart.
M. M. Kaye was born in India and spent most of her childhood and much
of her early married life in that country. Her ties with India are
strong: her grandfather, father, brother and husband all served the
Raj, and her grandfather's first cousin, Sir John Kaye, wrote the
standard accounts of the Indian Mutiny and the first Afghan War. When
India achieved independence her husband joined the British Army, and
for the next nineteen years she followed the drum to all sorts of
exciting places she would not otherwise have seen, including Kenya,
Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus and Berlin.
M. M. Kaye is best-known for her highly successful historical
novels, including the bestselling The Far Pavilions, Shadow of the
Moon and Trade Wind, all published by Penguin, and for her detective
novels, which include Death in Berlin, Death in Kenya and Death in
Cyprus (also published by Penguin in one volume entitled Murder
Abroad), and Death in Zanzibar, Death in Kashmir and Death in the
Andamans, also collected together in one volume. Penguin also publish
the first volume of her autobiography, The Sun in the Morning. The
second volume, Golden Afternoon, was published by Viking. M. M. Kaye
has also written a children's story, The Ordinary Princess (1991).
