** This is taken from the back of the book, and from the inside cover, which contains comments about "Trade Wind". My review follows. **
An enthralling blend of history, adventure and romance.
The year is 1859 and Hero Hollis, beautiful and headstrong niece of the American consul, arrives in Zanzibar. It is an earthly paradise fragrant with spices and frangipani; it is also the last and greatest outpost of the Slave Trade.
A passionate opponent of slavery, Hero is swept into a turmoil of royal intrigue, abduction, piracy, smuggling and a virulent cholera epidemic. There in Zanzibar, the most cruelly beautiful island of the Southern Seas, she must choose her love and unravel her destiny.
SOME REVIEWS FOR TRADE WIND:
'A wealth of incident against a fascinating background . . . a beautiful, almost lyrical style of writing'
~Liverpool Daily Post
'Strong narrative . . . telling descriptions'
~Birmingham Post
'Frangipani, jasmine and cloves . . . palace intrigues . . slave trades, cholera, pirates and storms at sea . . . a huge book'
~Guardian
My Review
Trade Wind starts with a little of the background of our wonderful heroine, Hero Hollis. It tells about her mother and father, how they died, and how she ended up going to such a place as Zanzibar in the first place. While on the ship sailing to Zanzibar, Hero is caught in a storm and swept overboard, only to be picked up by the Virago, a ship whose captain, Emory Frost, has a terrible reputation of being a slave trader, pirate, and all sorts of fun things. Of course, our prim and proper Hero does not know this at first, but when she does find out, she gets quite a shock.
Of course, she arrives all right in Zanzibar (where would the book be if she died in the storm?) and is taken in by her family. She wants to marry Clayton Mayo, but, of course, she ends up doubting her love for him. She keeps meeting with Emory Frost, and at one point is kidnaped by him after Clay takes his wife to be some street woman and rapes her. Emory returns the favor by doing the same to Clay's love, even though he admits it is not fair. And what does our beloved Hero do? She starts to fall in love with her attacker.
I shall not tell any more of the plot, but this book took my interest almost from the start (the starting IS kind of boring, but it gets better afterwards) and kept it. When I read this book, sadly, I am bored by the parts about the Royal family in Zanzibar. I usually skip those parts, and it does not affect the story in the least, in my opinion, after I had read it thoroughly once or twice. I would highly recommend this book, and out of ten I would give it a twelve. =)
Back to the Table of Contents