East of the Sun

By: Julia Gregson

Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues

Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.

Each of them has their own reason for leaving their homeland but the hopes and secrets they carry can do little to prepare them for what lies ahead in India...

©2008 Julia Gregson (P)2008 WF Howes Ltd

Critic reviews

A Richard and Judy Book Club selection.

Lovely Book

This is a great historical, romance epic novel. The narrator is excellent and the story is captivating. Loved learning some history of India while following the lives of the three women characters. This book is a delight to listen to and I look forward to another book by Julia Gregson soon. Well worth the time and credit!

Engaging

I LOVED how the author tied a larger world-view up in the stories of three quite different ladies. I liked how the story slowly unfolded...I find this resembles how life works...generally no huge cathartic epiphanies, but smaller, slower revelations that lend themselves to a larger awareness or understanding. I had a difficult time turning this one off at the end of each commute.

Good Read

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The book takes the lives of three women and follows them through their lives while they travel to and live in India. It was well written and touches on a part of history that I wasn't that familiar with. Definitely worth the read.

Great Narrator

I think I could listen to just about anything narrated by Tania Rodrigues. Her reading is wonderfully subtle and nuanced, and she makes this unambitious novel about British women who travel to India at the end of the Raj era more engaging and enjoyable.

India adventure

You become instantly involved with three unique young British girls we become functioning iv and mothers in on poverty and beauty of India
And you are pulled along through the ups w downs of their shaky marriages
Thtpytt

Journey to India

If you could sum up East of the Sun in three words, what would they be?

Compelling, colorful, and dramatic.
I enjoyed this long but involving story. Even at 600 pages, it kept my interest until nearly the end, then it felt a little bit too dragged out and anti climatic. The ending seemed abrupt. However, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to take dramatic journey to an India on the cusp of independence from English rule. The politics of the time are a backdrop but not a major part of the story, but the turmoil of the time does inform the events surrounding the characters.
The narration by Tania Rodrigues was perfect !

Utterly Delightful!

Not sure exactly what I loved about this book, but I just did!!!! It was funny, captivating, interesting & just plain Delightful!!!

India,heat, odors,poverty, et al.

Well written from an English woman's point of view. The British have always held a fascination for me as an American. One observation summed it up very well. One of the English ladies opines, describing a conversation at a gathering in India of ex-pats, that men converse as if there were only men in the room listening and capable of understanding. You definitely know right from the get-go that English women are a necessity, but not too bright and judged by their attractiveness and or their families wealth.

Slow start but worth the wait...

I'm not particularly a fan of this genre (drama??), but once in a while, i let myself get out of my reading comfort-zone, so i took a gamble with this book.
The blurb hooked me into buying the book (I must confess I didn't actually read the reviews, just saw the ratings) and at first, i was really dubious about being able to finish the whole book!
the best comparison i have for this book is: it's like slow-braised lamb - takes hours and hours to really get cooking, but well worth the wait. If you're a fan of flash-in-the-pan stirfry sizzle, it might not be your cup of tea, but as i said at the start, well-worth the wait...

East Of The Sun

this is a very good book characters are well developedStory flowed well.