**This is taken from the back of the book, and from the inside cover, which contains comments about "Shadow of the Moon". My review follows. **
India, that vast, glittering, cruel, mysterious and sunbaked continent, is captured here in a spectacular romance by the author of The Far Pavilions.
When India bursts into flaming hatreds and bitter bloodshed during the dark days of the Mutiny, Captain Alex Randall and his superior's wife, the lovely raven-haired Winter de Ballesteros, are thrown unwillingly together in the struggle for survival.
A REVIEW FOR SHADOW OF THE MOON:
'A closely interwoven story of love and war whose descriptive prose is so evocative that you can actually see and -- much more -- smell India as the country assaults you from the page'
-- Sunday Telegraph
My Review Shadow of the Moon. The name of a wonderful novel and story, one that reached out and grabbed me when I opened it, and would not release me until I had consumed every word. I was literally carrying this book everywhere when I first read it -- I took it to school, read it on the bus to and from school, between classes, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and all night. When I was finished, all I could do is let the tears of happiness roll down my cheeks and think. What happened? Did they live happily ever after? For M. M. Kaye wrote the sort of book with a big loose end, and all you can do is sit back helplessly and hope against hope that there is a sequel. There is none that I am aware of . . . yet, anyway . . .
Winter was raised for her first few years as an Indian (sounds like The Far Pavilions, doesn't it?) and is sent back to England to live with her doting great-grandfather and her aunts and uncles and cousins. She is miserable, for while she would be attractive by Indian standards, she was rather plain and thin. She spoke English but haltingly, and was homesick for India. Her aunts hated her, for her great-grandfather had taken a liking to this plain, horrible child while their own daughters were ignored.
When Winter was about eleven, Conway Barton came calling. He was a fortune hunter, and Winter was a considerable heiress. (The story of her parents is romantic but long, so I shall leave it to you to read). Her great-grandfather was aging, and was afraid for her after he died, so he betrothed her to Conway. He was about thirtyish already, but she saw him as a god -- golden hair and all. He gave her a cheap ring to wear and she was to be sent to him when she was old enough.
Winter grew to be quite a beauty. Finally, Captain Alex Randall came to fetch Winter from England and take her to India, where Conway Barton was a Commissioner. He tries to keep her from marrying him, and falls in love with her. But Winter, with her distorted memories of Conway, thinks he is trying to break them up and is quite nasty to him.
Conway ends up being old, fat, and drunk. Winter is told that he is ill, and they were married anyway. She realizes her mistake, but it is too late. Alex is always around, and he teaches her to shoot so she may use a gun against her drunken husband. She is miserable, but forced to stay.
The Mutiny breaks out, and Alex helps a small group of women flee the town into the jungle. Their struggle for survival begins, and Winter, whose husband is surely dead, finds herself falling in love . . .
That is all I will tell you, because you will be horribly mad at me if I spoil it any more. Please go and get this book!! It is wonderful, and you won't regret it! The only book that I have read that compares is Gone With the Wind, but, while being unfaithful to my page on that subject, I think it is a shade better.
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