Publisher: Doubleday
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/14/2011
ISBN-13: 9780385534406
ISBN-10: 038553440X

A Bengal tiger is the last thing eight-year-old Jaffy Brown expects to see prowling the streets of Victorian London; he's equally surprised when the beast picks him up in its jaws and carries him to Mr. Jamrach, an importer of exotic animals. Jamrach hires Jaffy as a caretaker for his menagerie, a job that will ultimately place the lad aboard a whaling ship bound for the South Seas. However, Jamrach is not looking for whales--he's hunting dragons, which he hopes to sell to wealthy collectors. Filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of 19th-century life both on land and at sea, Jamrach's Menagerie is a rollicking and, at times, harrowing adventure story that pays homage to the work of Charles Dickens and Herman Melville.

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/21/2011
ISBN-13: 9780312658656
ISBN-10: 0312658656

The toast of 1893 Newport society, Cora Cash is beautiful, clever, and very, very rich. She's also in need of a suitable husband, which prompts Cora's domineering mother to drag her to England to trade their family's money for a title. Nothing less than a duke will do for Cora, and the handsome Duke of Wareham, known as "Ivo," appears to fit the bill. But the pampered heiress is unprepared for the reality that lies beneath the fairy tale façade. Published in the U.K. as My Last Duchess and loosely based on the life and marriage of Gilded Age socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt, The American Heiress combines "flavors of Edith Wharton, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Austen, Upstairs, Downstairs, and a dash of People magazine" (Kirkus Reviews).

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Publisher: Scribner
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/24/2011
ISBN-13: 9781451608298
ISBN-10: 1451608292

One year after the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (parliament) in Berlin, young schoolteacher Thekla Jansen tries to adjust to the changes sweeping through Germany. Devoted to her job and to her pupils, Thekla, who's sure that the Third Reich can't last, reluctantly complies with the regime's increasingly objectionable regulations--from banning books to barring Jewish teachers and students from the school. Like the author's Stones from the River and Floating in My Mother's Palm, this novel is set in the fictional German village of Burgdorf and reveals the lives of ordinary individuals who struggle to survive amid the chaos of world events.

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Publisher: Crown
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/28/2011
ISBN-13: 9780307716576
ISBN-10: 0307716570

Following the death of his chief minister and adviser, Cardinal Mazarin, 22-year-old French King Louis XIV must learn how to rule a nation. When he's not shoring up his shaky finances, quieting civil unrest, or consolidating his power, the lusty Louis pursues women, including his sister-in-law, Henriette, and her lady-in-waiting, Louise. All the while, lurking in the background, is a strange boy in an iron mask. Taking place during the first year of the Sun King's reign, this "lively royal romp" (Booklist) may appeal to fans of other novels about the early years of prominent rulers, such as Alison Weir's The Lady Elizabeth, about Queen Elizabeth I's rise to power.

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Publisher: HarperCollins
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/2002
ISBN-13: 9780066212548
ISBN-10: 0066212545

Set against the tumultuous backdrop of India's struggle for independence, a sweeping epic, spanning three generations of an Indian family, follows Solomon Dorai, the head of the quaint village of Chevathar, as he makes choices to save his village that will affect the lives of his family for generations to come. 

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Publisher: Bloomsbury
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/16/2008
ISBN-13: 9781596910416
ISBN-10: 1596910410

On an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday in January 1913, Cambridge University mathematician G.H. Hardy receives an extraordinary letter from 23-year-old Srinvasa Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematical genius who works as a bank clerk in Madras, India. Intrigued by Ramanujan's work on the Reimann hypothesis, Hardy arranges to bring him to England. The young man, soon stranded in Cambridge by the outbreak of WWI, struggles to fit in with the intellectuals who dub him "the Hindoo Calculator." At the same time, Hardy, a long-closeted homosexual, fights his growing attachment to his protégé. Like Colm Tóibín's The Master, about Henry James, The Indian Clerk limns the interior lives of real-life geniuses who attempt to reconcile their private and public selves.

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/01/1998
ISBN-13: 9780226743400
ISBN-10: 0226743403

Displaced by WWII and the loss of her family, Englishwoman Daphne Manners goes to live with relatives in Mayapore, India, where she falls in love with British-educated Indian Hari Kumar--an affair that infuriates brutal police superintendent Ronald Merrick. Originally published in 1966, The Jewel in the Crown is the 1st book in the Raj Quartet, followed by The Day of the Scorpion. For another historical tale of forbidden cross-cultural romance, try Carolyn Slaughter's A Black Englishman. Or if you enjoy epic sagas about the culture clashes and class conflicts resulting from the British presence in India, you might like Thalassa Ali's Paradise trilogy, which takes place a century earlier and begins with A Singular Hostage.

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Publisher: McPherson
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/01/2004
ISBN-13: 9780929701714
ISBN-10: 0929701712

According to Princess Jahanara, the story of the Taj Mahal begins with the passionate love shared by her parents, Shah Jahan and his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, affectionately known as Taj. Taj's untimely death devastates Jahan and, consumed by grief, he commissions an extravagant mausoleum to his late wife's memory while his family and kingdom begin to disintegrate. More politically savvy than her brothers, Jahanara becomes her father's adviser and one of the most influential women in 17th-century India. Yet she is powerless to prevent a coup by her greedy brother, just as she is unable to avoid falling in love with the monument's architect, Isa, whom she cannot marry.

Publisher: Pocket Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/18/2003
ISBN-13: 9780743428187
ISBN-10: 0743428188

This "sweeping, carefully researched" (Publishers Weekly) novel follows the life of Mehrunnisa, a Persian courtier's daughter who became the twentieth and favorite wife of Mughal Emperor Jahangir. The child of refugees, Mehrunnisa--beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious--is determined to establish herself at court and win the heart of the man she's loved since childhood. But there are many obstacles in her path, including Jahangir's jealous chief wife. If you enjoyed John Speed's The Temple Dancer with its strong characterizations and richly detailed depictions of life in 17th-century India, don't miss this opening volume of Indu Sundaresan's Taj Mahal trilogy, which continues with The Feast of Roses and Shadow Princess.

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