{"id":3114,"date":"2019-04-16T04:15:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T11:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3114"},"modified":"2019-04-16T04:15:23","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T11:15:23","slug":"sujata-massey-the-satapur-moonstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/sujata-massey-the-satapur-moonstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Sujata Massey: The Satapur Moonstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When you\u2019re young and discover you love reading, nothing is better than finding the kind of book that takes you away and absorbs you for hours.\u00a0 As a child, I felt this way when I discovered books like The Secret Garden, Charlotte\u2019s Web <\/em>and the entire Narnia Chronicles. Transported.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so common to find this kind of immersive reading experience when you\u2019re an older reader, so discovering one of these reads is a treasure to be cherished.\u00a0 That\u2019s a long way of saying that Sujata Massey\u2019s Perveen Mistry series are just such immersive, absorbing and captivating reads.<\/p>\n

The Satapur Moonstone<\/em> is the second in her series featuring female lawyer Perveen Mistry.\u00a0 She works for her father\u2019s firm in Bombay in the 1920\u2019s, and she\u2019s an unusual example of early feminism.\u00a0 Because of her gender, she can\u2019t argue cases in court, but Massey is ingenious in finding ways that Perveen\u2019s gender works to her advantage rather than her disadvantage.<\/p>\n

The first novel, as all first novels should be, was Perveen\u2019s origin story, where she establishes herself amid a great deal of struggle.\u00a0 This second novel is more of an adventure with all that implies \u2013 a journey through the jungle in a palanquin, monkeys, a tiger, several maharajahs (dead and alive), a moonstone necklace, and a palace full of maharinis attempting to decide what\u2019s best for a young maharajah who is too young to assume power.<\/p>\n

Perveen is appointed by the British government (something she has mixed feelings about, as she\u2019s a great admirer of the young Gandhi and is hoping for India\u2019s freedom) to journey to the far away Satapur and discuss the Maharajah\u2019s education with the maharinis \u2013 one his grandmother, one his mother \u2013 who are in complete disagreement about his future.\u00a0 One wants an English boarding school, one wants a tutor.<\/p>\n

Perveen\u2019s journey by train and through the jungle to arrive at the \u201cCircuit House\u201d where the British government official lives is a long and arduous one, and when she arrives she learns she has another long journey through the jungle by palanquin before she will arrive at the palace.\u00a0 They\u2019ve refused entry to the male government agent as they are women living in purdah, so the thought is that Perveen will have a better chance at entry, both by virtue of her gender and her nationality.<\/p>\n

Perveen does eventually gain entry to the palace after almost being refused because she looks so dirty after her trek through the jungle, and what she finds there is a morass of resentments and a history of sudden death that stretches from the young maharajah\u2019s father to his recently dead older brother, who was eaten by a tiger on a hunt.<\/p>\n

In the first novel, Perveen\u2019s origin was all, slowly and masterfully revealed.\u00a0 In this novel, the sinewy, delicious, tricky story is all, as Perveen uncovers motivations and hatreds and unexpected goodness as well.\u00a0 The characters are just as firmly etched and brought to life on the page as they were in the first novel.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fun to see Perveen using her mind as she solves this puzzle.\u00a0 You seriously will not want to stop reading, and finishing the book \u2013 coming back to the 21st<\/sup> century after being immersed in 1920\u2019s colonial India \u2013 is somewhat jarring.\u00a0 Though it\u2019s a year away, I cannot wait for Perveen\u2019s return.<\/p>\n

Fans of Barbara Cleverly, Rhys Bowen and Susan Elia MacNeal will enjoy these books.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re young and discover you love reading, nothing is better than finding the kind of book that takes you away and absorbs you for hours.\u00a0 As a child, I felt this way when I discovered books like The Secret Garden, Charlotte\u2019s Web and the entire Narnia Chronicles. Transported. It\u2019s not so common to find … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[108,10,11,111,109,106,107,110],"class_list":["post-3114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1920s-india","tag-historical","tag-international","tag-monkeys","tag-moonstones","tag-perveen-mistry","tag-sujata-massey","tag-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3115,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}