You really should read the first in this trilogy, The Sea of Poppies, before embarking upon this huge, sprawling epic history for, although not all the characters of that first book are followed here, you will appreciate this so much more if you have an idea of who is whom. It covers the opium trade when Hong Kong was empty and Mauritius prosperous, when rich British and American merchants put profit above everything else and opium smuggling in Canton was rife. It is a full of fascinating detail and rich in history. Dense and totally absorbing, it is a must read. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
The Ibis Trilogy:
1. Sea of Poppies
2. River of Smoke
3. Flood of Fire
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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The Ibis is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for survival are Neel, the pampered raja who has been convicted of embezzlement; Paulette, the French orphan masquerading as a deck hand; and Deeti, the widowed poppy grower fleeing her homeland with her lover, Kalua. The storm also threatens the clipper ship Anahita, groaning with the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India for Canton. And the Redruth, a nursery ship, carries Fitcher Penrose, a horticulturist determined to track down the priceless treasures of China: plants that have the power to heal, or beautify, or intoxicate. All will converge in Cantons Fanqui-Town, or Foreign Enclave: a tumultuous world unto itself where civilizations clash and sometimes fuse. It is a powder keg awaiting a spark to ignite the Opium Wars. Spectacular coincidences, startling reversals of fortune, and tender love stories abound. But this is much more than an irresistible page-turner. The blind quest for money, the primacy of the drug trade, the concealment of base impulses behind the rhetoric of freedom: in River of Smoke the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries meet, and the result is a consuming historical novel with powerful contemporary resonance.
River of Smoke features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Historical Fiction, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
River of Smoke is available in Paperback, Hardback, Ebook
River of Smoke was written by Amitav Ghosh and published by Penguin Canada
£28.80
