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The Temple Dancer: A Novel of India, by John Speed
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India, 1657: When Maya, a graceful, young temple dancer with a mysterious past, is sold into slavery, she enters a world of intrigue, violence, and forbidden love. Bought by a Portuguese trader and sold as a concubine to the dissolute vizier of Bijapur, she embarks on a treacherous journey.
In a caravan led by the dangerous settlement man Da Gama, she travels by elephant on the hostile road to Bijapur, joined by Geraldo, a Portuguese adventurer, and Pathan, a handsome prince who carries a dark secret. Together with Lucinda, a beautiful, spoiled young Goan heiress, and the manipulative eunuch Slipper, they climb the windswept mountain road through the Western Ghats. When their caravan is attacked by bandits, the travelers' lives are turned upside down. In the aftermath, Maya and Lucinda suddenly find themselves stranded in a strange, exotic world, a world filled with passion, romance, and deception, pure love and lurking evil, where nothing is as it seems and the two women are faced with great temptation as well as heart-wrenching decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
Greed, politics, commitment, courage, love, and intolerance mesh to form a vibrant Indian tapestry. With spectacular settings, unforgettable characters, fierce sensuality, and intense scholarship, this adventure-packed novel marks the debut of an exciting new storyteller. The Temple Dancer is the first volume of John Speed's Indian trilogy, a three-book journey that will cover the final years of the Mogul Empire and the rise of the Marathis under the highwayman Shivaji. It will leave you breathlessly awaiting his next novel.
- Published on: 2016-05-10
- Released on: 2016-05-10
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 2
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x .68" w x 5.25" l,
- Running time: 16 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
From Publishers Weekly
A melange of creatively imagined characters populates Speed's first novel (the first installment of a proposed trilogy), an entertaining historical saga that takes place in 17th-century India. At the center of the story is Maya, a Hindi slave who is being transported across dangerous terrain by a caravan of Portuguese settlers that includes the aging adventurer Da Gama and Lucinda, a spoiled but sensitive young woman. The most intriguing traveler is Slipper, a Muslim eunuch whose relationship to Maya serves as one of the driving mysteries of the novel. The fast-paced story benefits from intriguing characters and situations twisted just enough to keep them on the safe side of unbelievable. Though the story is sometimes beset by overexplanation and cartoonishly violent episodes, it's driven by a contagious enthusiasm for the people and places encountered throughout the journey. Speed, a longtime scholar of Indian history, takes more care with plot and cultural color than dialogue and style, but the result is an enjoyable adventure that still has respect for its characters. (Aug. 31)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Renowned historian Speed conducts an exciting tour of seventeenth-century India. Lavish and lush, this mesmerizing novel wends its way across the exotic Indian landscape as Maya, a dazzling temple dancer bought by a savvy Portuguese businessman as a politically expedient gift for the grand vizier of Bijapur, is transported via caravan to her new master. Of course, the road to Bijapur is not a smooth one, and Maya and her escorts face a new danger around every bend. Chock-full of sex, suspense, and peril, this high-voltage adventure yarn will rapidly transport willing readers to a vanished time and place. The initial volume in a projected trilogy, this installment will leave readers craving more. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Speed conducts a dazzling tour of seventeenth-century India. Lavish and lush . . . mesmerizing . . . Chock-full of sex, suspense, and peril, this high-voltage adventure yarn will rapidly transport willing readers to vanished time and place. [It] will leave readers craving more.”---Booklist
“The fast-paced story benefits from intriguing characters and situations twisted just enough to keep them on the safe side of unbelievable . . . it’s driven by a contagious enthusiasm for the people and places encountered throughout the journey . . . an enjoyable adventure that still has respect for its characters.”---Publishers Weekly
“A richly atmospheric debut.” ---Kirkus Reviews
“. . . an absorbing adventure and love story . . . fast-paced and suspenseful.”
---About.com
“The Temple Dancer sweeps the reader into an age of passion and danger, romance, chivalry, and high adventure---an age when a bandit could defy an emperor and a dancing girl change the course of history. Set against the rich backdrop of Moghul India, The Temple Dancer’s combination of history, intrigue, and forbidden love should appeal to anyone who loves M. M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions and Shadow of the Moon. In fact, it should appeal to anyone who loves a story that will totally intrigue them.”---India Edghill, author of Queenmaker and Wisdom’s Daughter
"What an adventure! Two women, utterly different in culture and outlook, travel across seventeenth century India on elephant back and discover, in the face of betrayal, that they have a great deal more in common than they ever suspected. Beautifully researched, this novel has it all: heroes adept with sword and pistol, bold and independent heroines, corrupt rulers, treacherous eunuchs, slippery merchants, and bloodthirsty banditti. The author stirs them all together with a handsome dose of conspiracy, mysticism, and sensuality to create a splendid entertainment in the grand style. --Judith Merkle Riley, author of A Vision of Light, The Oracle Glass, The Master of All Desires, and The Water Devil “The Temple Dancer is an ocean of a story, filled with adventure, passion, and heartbreak. It’s compulsively readable and everything you want in a novel.”
---Michael Swanwick, author of Bones of the Earth
“The Temple Dancer is a lush, loopy, multicultural epic set in seventeenth-century India, like the cockeyed marriage of a Bollywood musical and an Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland movie, well-researched, playfully written, and highly entertaining.”
---Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters and Lives of the Circus Animals
“The Temple Dancer is what reading is all about. This book upholds true literature, which is . . . the beauty of language. There is a wonderful world here full of enchantment and nourishment.”
---Daniel Ladinsky, translator of The Gift and I Heard God Laughing
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Good First Novel
By Ana Mardoll
The Temple Dancer / 0-312-32548-7
"The Temple Dancer" is a fine first novel for a promising new author, although I am surprised by the description's reference to a "proposed trilogy", given the rather 'final' nature of the epilogue. Though not without its faults, the novel is an engaging read and is worth a look, particularly for fans of the genre.
To give credit to the author, the story is engaging and moves along nicely, with the exposition as fascinating and well written as the action. Speed has also finely captured his female characters, which can be a difficult feat for a male author writing about such easily stereotyped characters as the Exotic Temple Dancer and Spoiled Heiress. Yet Speed's women resist stereotyping and show great resilience and strength of character in the turmoil that faces them. The male characters are, mostly, also very well done, with the 'tired old soldier' stereotype fleshed out nicely here as the men grapple with their own lives and whether they are brave enough to risk or even discard their futures for the women they have come to love and admire.
Not all of the characters are so thoroughly fleshed out, though. Speed's "unlikely villain" seems to be almost impossibly evil and conniving - carefully disposing of every member of his family over the course of many years in order to place himself closer to his family's fortune. In addition to these carefully manipulated murders, he seems to take sadistic delight in the torments the women suffer on their journey, and while it may be said that evil does not need a reason to be evil, it would be a nice inclusion to understand what motivates this man to be so cruel. Speed also relies heavily on misunderstandings, poor communication, and just plain stupidity of characters to advance the plot, which I hope he will trim to a minimum for his next novel.
(Example: When an old, frail man who is openly taking arsenic as 'medicine' dies of arsenic overdose, it seems unreasonable for *everyone* in the camp to immediately assume it was murder. It is just as likely that he took to much medicine or that his age and frailty couldn't handle the strain, and at least a few people should have voiced doubts as to the certainty of murder.)
This book is labeled historical fiction and Speed certainly takes care with the details and much of the overlay here seems genuine. A secret, powerful cabal of eunuchs seems to stretch the imagination slightly, and it also seems a powerful coincidence that the dancer - Maya - is carrying the long-lost treasure that they lost so many years ago, and an even further coincidence that the eunuch chosen to escort her to her new life is the very same one who lost the treasure so long ago! Nor is this incredible string of coincidences ever adequately explained, but rather it is just left as one of those mystical convergences that just happen. Although it did not detract much from my enjoyment of this story, I hope that the next novel from this author relies a little less on coincidence to drive the plot. In fact, I think a little less coincidence and more of the mostly superb character development could result in a fine novel indeed.
~ Ana Mardoll
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Exotic, exciting, enticing pageturner
By Marybeth Robb
What a story! The beach melted away as I was transported to 17th century India on the carpet of this extravagant story. Speed is quite a story teller--the section about the fall of the elephant still has my head spinning--and is the perfect antidote for the end of summer doldrums. One warning, Speed takes a few dozen pages to get warmed up, set the stage, introduce the characters, but then his tale takes off like a rocket. Interlaced with this intricate story is a lot of historical and cultural detail, which Speed feeds you like a sweet ice between courses--tastes great, complements the next dish, and makes you feel virtuous because it doesn't have any fat.
A truly enjoyable read!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Crowd-pleasing beauty...with serious muscle.
By Marzipan Frye
Usually, when faced with a work of fiction, there's a certain point, somewhere in the middle, that you can point to and say, "Now THIS is where the plot really starts to thicken." Even a great page-turner like the Da Vinci Code will have a storyline that becomes quite elaborate and developed within the first 150 pages and fizzles out at the end.
In the case of The Temple Dancer, the plot thickens on page 5, doubles in on itself by page 50, and develops into a superlatively loopy conundrum by the middle of the book. If the plot were any thicker, the book would certainly implode, which would be a shame because nobody would get to read it then.
Mr. Speed keeps the whole thing chugging along by killing off characters unexpectedly, thus creating opportunities to insert yet more action. This is exactly the sort of kinetic artistry that defines blockbuster adventure stories, and the author is clearly a master at his craft. With a little effort spent on keeping the interlocking story lines straight (the map and list of characters help), the reader can remain engaged until the very last page. Which, as it happens, contains an astonishing plot twist.
I am eagerly awaiting the second volume of this trilogy, to find out what happens next.
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