Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar
Unavailable
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar
Unavailable
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar
Audiobook10 hours

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

Written by Suzanne Joinson

Narrated by Tania Rodrigues

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Unavailable in your country

Unavailable in your country

About this audiobook

A stunning debut peopled by unforgettable characters, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to
Kashgar is an extraordinary story of inheritance and the search for belonging in a
fractured and globalised world.

China, 1923. Evangeline English arrives with her sister to help establish a Christian mission. As they attempt to navigate their new home and are met with resistance, Eva commences work on her book, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar… In present-day London, Frieda, a young woman adrift in her own life, opens her front door one night to find a man sleeping on the landing. In the morning he is gone, leaving on the wall an exquisite drawing of a long-tailed bird and a line of Arabic script…
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 5, 2012
ISBN9781471204593
Unavailable
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar
Author

Suzanne Joinson

Suzanne Joinson is an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction whose work has appeared in, among other places, the New York Times, Vogue UK, Aeon, Lonely Planet collections of travel writing and the Independent on Sunday. Her first novel, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (2012) was translated into 16 languages and was a National Bestseller. She lives in Sussex. suzannejoinson.com / @suzyjoinson

Related to A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

General Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

Rating: 3.487577639751553 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

161 ratings28 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book. Its premise is unusual in that half of it takes place in Kashgar in the early 1900's while the other half is in modern-day England. In Kashgar, three young women go off to be missionaries to the Moslems, and the women suffer all sorts of deprivations. In England, meanwhile, Frieda returns from a trip abroad to discover that she has inherited the entire estate of a woman who is unknown to her. She also finds a man sleeping outside the door to her apartment her first evening at home. The plot features all kinds of unexpected twists and turns as it links these two diverse stories. An excellent read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reason for Reading: First off the title attracted me, then secondly I was both interested in the location and time period as these are favourite topics of mine.A very intriguing story that kept me hooked from start to finish. Told in two points of view. One the first hand account of the diary of Eva as she travels through 1920s China as a Christian missionary at a time when it is under major Muslim upheaval. Second, the third person narrative of a modern day English woman and Arab immigrant man who meet surreptitiously and together put their lives back on track. I found the historical element entirely gripping and engrossing. I always enjoy stories told through journal entries and found Joinson has used this device well; bringing the reader into not only the time period and the plot but also the geography of a land that no longer exists in today's world. I found her detail for description to be just the right amount to bring her world to life without getting bogged down in tedium. It is a hot, dry, thirsty world and was perfect for my time spent reading in the hot days of summer. I totally loved the characters in this part of the story as well, though not actually personally liking anyone except Eva, they were all very large as life personalities who brought a tale of religious riot to life.On the other hand I found the modern day story somewhat lacking. Taking up much less space than the other story, less time is given to developing the characters and I never felt connected to either Frieda or Tayeb. Their story seemed somewhat rushed, their connection not quite coherent and honestly Freida's story could have been told to greater depths without the Tayeb connection. This could have allowed the author to concentrate more on the mother/daughter theme which runs through the book but got lost and wasn't fulfilled to any great satisfaction. Freida and Tayeb's story was a pleasant diversion though and while I wasn't happy with how it connected to the past, it did connect, and proved itself in the end. For fans of epistolary fiction and historical fiction that concentrates on society and character rather than events.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The title caught me first. Then the cover. And oh, the endpapers, they were quite wonderful … My imagination had been captured, and I was quite ready for the story to take hold of me. It did. I found myself in Kashgar, in East Turkestan, in 1923. I was in the company of three lady. Christian missionaries. Millicent was their leader, a very capable woman, who was quite sure of the rightness of her mission but was maybe unable to understand that others might see the world rather differently. Lizzie gave her full support to Millicent: but it seemed that she was a leader and not a follower, and I wondered if she was truly following her own path. And then there was Eva, Lizzie’s elder sister … “In my mind’s eye I conjure up Sir Richard Burton’s crackling eyes. Give me courage Sir Richard! I have convinced Millicent of my missionary calling. I have convinced a publisher of the worth of my proposed book. I have even tricked my dear sister who believes that I am here in His name to do His Good Works. I should be feeling clever. I have escaped England, but why, then always this apprehension? To my surprise, despite a childhood of reading maps and reading adventure stories, I realise that I am quite terrified of the desert …” Yes, Eva was a little different. I loved reading her words. I loved seeing the world through her eyes, described so beautifully and so naturally And I grew to love her. The three women changed – were changed – and their relationships changed, as they ran into difficulties and found their journey halted. I was absorbed, I was fascinated, as more and more of their characters were revealed. And I so wanted to know where the story would take them. That made it a little disappointing when I found myself pulled back to contemporary London from time to time. Frieda was another lady traveller, in an age when travel was taken for granted, and maybe the sense of wonder had been lost. She worked for a think tank, travelling through the Arab world, carrying out research. And she had come home to London to find a young Arab man sleeping on her doorstep and a solicitor’s letter, telling her that she was the heir to a woman she knew not at all. Her story was predictable in places, and there were times when I longed to return to Eva in Kashgar. But there were also wonderful moments, where the story twisted in ways that were quite unexpected, where I found wonderful insights into the human condition. Then I was quite happy to be in such a familiar place. A London that I recognised, but a London that occasionally felt as different as Kashgar. The two stories had similar themes threaded through: travel, cultural differences, motherhood, women’s independence … so much has changed, and yet so much has remained the same. They were of course connected. That connection was revealed quite naturally, and it felt completely right. Indeed, the whole story felt right. I turned the pages quickly, caught up with wonderful characters, fascinating stories, and different worlds, so wonderfully described that they came alive before my eyes. I suspect that Eva’s love of travel writing, that made her want to travel, reflects the passion of her creator. “It was reading her descriptions of the candles and lights and the mysterious glittering interiors, the tapirs, silks, the jewels and hangings that had inspired my desire to travel.” That love shone, and it made it easy for me to forgive those very few weaknesses, to fall in love with this book as a whole. And now I think I need to find another book to take me travelling again, to see more of the world through the eyes of other lady travellers …
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson is a dual time story with one part of the novel being set in 1923 as we follow the misadventures of three women missionaries. They disrupt the birth of a child on the side of the road, and, when the young mother dies, find themselves under house arrest in the city of Kashgar, which is one of the westernmost cities of China. They are looked upon with great suspicion mostly because they are three unaccompanied, unveiled women. While all three are there as Christian missionaries, it soon becomes clear that Eva, the narrator, cares less about religion than she does about the travelling and exploring of new places. She plans on writing a book, a guide for women on bicycling. The second part of the narrative takes us to present-day London. Frieda is an academic researcher who has been having an affair with a married man for quite some time. She finds herself involved in the immigrant underground when she befriends Tayeb, a sensitive artist from Yeman who is a homeless illegal immigrant. When Frieda finds that she has inherited the possessions of a woman she didn’t know, she and Tayeb work together to investigate the connection.Other than the shared themes of love, loss and redemption, it isn’t obvious why or how these two stories are connected. Both narrators are childless women, both apparently love to ride bicycles, although there is very little actual cycling done, and both are embarking on a voyage of self-discovery. Eventually a link is established, but by that time I was already totally involved in both story-lines and carried away by both adventures. This is a debut novel and I find myself a fan of this author who supplied exotic locales, descriptive imagery and unusual but relatable characters. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar was an enjoyable read and I will be looking for more by this author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I can't imagine going to Kashgar even now (it is very remote) but to go as part of a team of three women missionaries from England in 1923 seems very brave. Of course, this is a novel; although there were European missionaries who went to Kashgar in the early 1900s none of them appear to have been women. So I guess this story is more fantasy than based on reality. I did have to suspend my disbelief at times.Eva English travelled with her sister Lizzie and her sister's mentor Millicent from England to Kashgar (now situated in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China) to act as missionaries to bring Christianity to the primarily Muslim region. In addition to being viewed with suspicion because they were Christian and female when they helped a young Muslim girl give birth which resulted in her death they were placed under house arrest. Eva was given the task of looking after the infant girl who survived the birth. Ai-Lien, as Eva called her, must have been strong since she survived illness, lack of food and water, changes in milk, and long hours of travel. Millicent was not worried about the house arrest and she continued to try to convert women she encountered. While all this was going on in Kashgar the Muslims in other areas were rebelling against the Chinese government. A male missionary visited them and urged them to leave Kashgar but Millicent refused to do so.There is a parallel story set in the present day in London. Frieda has been contacted by the housing authority because she is the next of kin named by Irene Guy, a woman who has just died. Frieda has a week to remove any belongings from Irene's apartment; the problem is that Frieda has never heard of Irene Guy and she must find and confront her own mother to learn about Irene.Of course, the reader can easily deduce that Irene Guy is the same as the infant Ai-Lien. Frieda's examination of her apartment gives us the full story of what happened to Eva and Ai-Lien.It was interesting to read this book in the latter part of 2019 because the Uygar people are in the news as a result of China imprisoning thousands of the Muslim Uygars. It seems the tensions in that area keep on.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A story of adventurous women in the past and in the present. Eva travels the Silk Road pretending at missionary work but really wanting to experience a faraway place. Present day international researcher Freida unravels Eva’s story for us as she learns about her family and discovers her own rootlessness along with Tate’s, an illegal immigrant. Novel has lots of good points but a bit to general in nature. Not sure about the ending.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I wanted to like this more but found it didn't hold my attention all that well. It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient city of Kashgar on the Silk Road. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva's motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure.In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and pillow and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded and an exquisite drawing of a bird with a long feathery tail, some delicate Arabic writing, and a boat made out of a flock of seagulls on her wall. Tayeb, in flight from his Yemeni homeland, befriends Frieda and, when she learns she has inherited the contents of an apartment belonging to a dead woman she has never heard of, they embark on an unexpected journey together.Of course there is a connection between the two stories. I never really connected well with either of them though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    very literary approach: she is writing a guide book, gets swept up with missionaries, adopts a child. in the present, an unexpected inheritance leads freida on a quest.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Eva's journey as a missionary on the Silk Road circa 1920 unearths bewildering cultures, perilous geography, disturbing blasphemy; and unfolds the destiny of Frieda in present day London.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I feel like a need to make a shelf for "historical novels about women travelling" as it is a sort of favorite of mine. This was an intriguing read. The novel has two parallel threads, one set in 1923 in Asia and the other in contemporary London. The first plot is implied by the title. Evangeline English is travelling with her sister Lizzie and another missionary, the domineering Millicent to establish a mission somewhere along the Great Silk Road. Evangeline, ironically (due to her name), is actually non-religious and has come on the mission to satisfy her desire for travel and adventure. The book's title is also the title of the travel narrative she hopes to create from her adventures. The second plot is that of Frieda, whose job takes her frequently abroad, but who feels her connections with outside cultures is based on false pretenses, much like her lackluster affair with a married man. Frieda's life changes, however, when she receives word that she must clean out the flat of a mysterious woman, Irene Guy, an apparent relative of whom she has never heard. Nearly at the same time she finds a homeless Yemeni immigrant, Tayeb, sleeping in the corridor outside her apartment and loans him a pillow and blanket. Suddenly, Frieda is caught up in an intriguing web of familial and cultural connections that pull her out of her sterile connection with "global culture" and into the complex world of real human life and relations.

    I was pulled in by the stories of Evangeline, Frieda and Tayeb, intrigued by the stories themselves and also by the way that the crosscurrents of history flow through our individual lives in ways we can only dimly comprehend. The writing is vivid and well-paced, not rushed but never dragging. The settings are intriguing in themselves and beautifully rendered and the plotlines kept my interest. On the surface, a fairly quick and simple read, but touching on deeper ideas of global society and history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Flew through this novel and thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the parallel (then intersecting) stories set in contemporary London and colonial-era Kashgar (though surprisingly little is said about the eponymous bicycle). That said, there is plenty to nitpick from a historical perspective. A woman such as Eva, masquerading as one of the missionary faithful in order to seek a life adventure of the sort not permitted in England to a lady of her class, would almost certainly have been found out by the probing questions of the China Inland Mission's recruitment committee (or indeed that of any of the major missionary societies).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting story of two independent women in different periods of history. Both are interested in Muslim cultures. The single missionary in the 1920’s who finds herself q single parent to a baby orphan girl turns out to have a connection to the modern single girl who finds herself inheriting the possessions of a woman she didn't know. Both stories are interesting. I particularly enjoyed the historical aspects of Eva’s story about life in a Muslim society and her escape with Ai Lein to Russia and eventually back to England and her unconventional life there.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Substance: What should be an interesting view of the central Asian world of the early 1920s was marred for me by a cast I did not care for and a tawdry exposition.Style: Chapters alternate between the 1920s cast and the contemporary descendants of some. The writing is okay but not outstanding. 
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This story was very involved and I struggled to get through it. My mind kept going back to the Kashmir Shawl which was also along similar lines with missionaries then, and relatives now.

    I think the title of this book was misleading as it gave a promise of something else.

    This is a good book and is nicely written, but it did not suit my reading.

    (Won in giveaways)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this book - flipping between 1920's Chinese missionary excursion and contemporary England. Combining a personal journey, road trip and a great story that moves quickly and introduces lots of interesting reveals. None of the central characters are conformist or predictable but it's not quirky.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book, a story in 2 parts really. Eva and her sister Lizzie who are trying to establish a mission in Kashgar in the 1920s. They arrive to the scene of a young girl of 10 or 11 giving birth under a tree. Things go from bad to worse when the european women are accused of murdering the girl and are held under house arrest, with the girls baby.The other half of the story involves Frieda, in the present day, who has mysteriously been left the contents of a flat in England, thousands of miles from Kashgar, from someone she has no knowledge of! You are left wondering how on earth these 2 stories become one and the book has you guessing right up until the point it is revealed!A charming if unsettling book looking at the relationships between dramtically differing cultures.A really fascinating read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great interweaving of a present day woman and a woman in the 1920s who goes on an ill-fated missionary trip to china. Another excellent use of anticipation--wanting to know what comes next. Note to self: interesting reference to the freedom biking brings to Eva. When she flees the country she doesn't want to leave the bike. p. 307: "I did not tell her that it was my shield and my method of escape; or that since the first time I pedalled and felt the freedom of cycling, I've known that it is the closest one can get to flying."

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It was a good book (not great) with an interesting story line. It reads pretty quickly.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I liked this intertwined tale of Eva, Lizzie and Millicent on a missionary journal to KAshgar and the present day of Frieda. Parts of the Kashgar portion may have been far fetched but despite this I was involved and entertained by both tales.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Eva is going on a grand adventure. With her sister Lizzie and her acquaintance Millicent, they are traveling to Kashgar as missionaries. It's a treacherous road for 3 women in the 1920's, but Eva is determined to make the best of it. While she is traveling, Eva is writing a guide for cycling to Kashgar. Back in the present, Freida is a world traveler. She loves the freedom of being able to leave and experience so many wonderful places. Soon though, she meets Tayeb, a man trying to avoid deportation to his native Yemen. She also learns that she is responsible for an apartment full of stuff left to her by a person she has never met. The tales of Freida, Tayeb, and Eva all intermingle as they each work their way through their separate adventures.This book wasn't at all what I expected. There are two main stories, and it is unclear how they are related for quite a bit. I loved the way they tied in, but I wish the author had dropped a few more clues along the way. I had kind of figured it out, but the payoff felt a little late for me. I loved the feel of the book though. Eva is basically using the mission and missionaries for a chance to see the world. I thought she was a great character. Freida and Tayeb were a bit more difficult to get a feeling for. I also felt like their story had slightly less resolution too. I was very interested in their stories though. I was really drawn into this book, and there were some great surprises too.Millicent was perhaps the most interesting person in the book. I really wanted some more back story on her, although it really wouldn't have fit in the context of the story. When things were finally brought together in the end, it was nice to see it all make sense. Overall I found this to be a really absorbing and fascinating story.Galley provided for review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Reading this novel is a kaleidoscope of colors, scents and times. I love the interplay of characters and times. The descriptive power is such that you are there in the dust and in the fountained gardens. Meeting the smells and sights through the author’s word usage is a delight, a whirling evocative happening that evolves into a sustaining and satisfactory experience.It’s 1923 and two missionary women, sisters, travel to the city of Kashgar along the Silk Road, both for very different reasons. One has adventure in mind, the other missionary zeal.Their story is juxtaposed against the modern day meeting of and Frieda and Tayeb, a refugee from Yemeni, whom Frieda first comes across asleep in her London apartment doorway. The characters’ stories are linked by Frieda inheriting the contents of an apartment belonging to an unknown woman. Times and situations merge into each other under the microscope of this magically crafted novel.Highly recommended.A Netgalley ARC
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the dual story of two missionaries in 1920's China and of a friendship that develops between woman in current-day London and an illegal immigrant from Yemen whom she finds sleeping near her doorstep.The writing was elegant, and this kind of story is my cup of tea, so I loved it!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book was not at all what I was expecting which was a book about a rather intrepid Victorian or Edwardian English woman having adventures with her bicycle in Asia. Instead this book is an insightful study on in culture clash , cultural dislocation and the age old dilemma of how mothers relate to daughters.It's told in alternating chapters bouncing from the 1920's in Asia to the present day in London. In the first instance Evangeline English has arrived in Kashgar in Turkestan with her sister, Lizzie and a rather gruff woman missionary named Millicent. Evangeline has no particular religious calling; she is there to be with her sister. But she does have a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar and it is her notes towards this end that tell her story.In the modern sections of the book a young woman named Frieda studying the youth of the Arab world for a think tank finds a man sleeping outside her door. She gives him a pillow and a blanket and thus ensues a relationship she has never anticipated.Of course Frieda's and Evangeline's lives are connected, and the story of how this is and how a life lived almost 100 years ago can have a profound affect on a person living in the 21st Century makes for a very good read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's really difficult for me to competently write this review, since I do feel very ambivalent about A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, about what it was and what it could have been.I enjoyed the two storylines almost equally. This is where Ms. Joinson serious writing skills show: creating and building up the characters that are interesting, engaging and keep the reader reading. I was especially drawn to the ones that were rather on the dark side, even though there were precious few of them. Millicent, the missionary who led Lizzie and Eva to Kashgar, turned out to be a pretty despicable creature in my eyes, mostly because of her selfishness and complete disregard for those devoted to her. However, this character alone added a lot of richness to A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar and without her the novel could have possibly turned out to be boring. To me, one of the top three factors determining the quality of a novel is the emotional aspect. A story, or even one element of it, has to evoke strong feelings within me. Both positive and negative will do. That's what happened in the case of Ms. Joinson's book and thank goodness for that. As awful as Millicent was, she added spice and dimension to A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar.The same also applies to the present story of Frieda and Tayeb. This one had actually three deliciously despicable people (Frieda's father, mother and married lover, Nathaniel) but boy, did I hate Frieda's mother. That little number was selfishness personified. It's as if Millicent's spirit was being reborn from generation to generation until it found its perfect host. Call me opinionated and judgmental, but if a woman makes a conscious decision to become a mother, raises the child for long enough to be loved by her/him and then simply disappears forever because there are more important things for here out there, then I won't even consider wasting my time trying to understand the motives. But yet again, Frieda's mother kept me reading A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar until the end.What exactly is the reason for devoting two paragraphs to characters only, very unlikeable ones nonetheless? It's because, sadly, everything else fell short for me. The historical aspect held a lot of promise. With the Christian first female missionaries arriving at that remote and hostile part of the world and the conflict between the Muslims, the Chinese and the missionaries (both female and male), a lot could have been happening to make A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar stand out. And again, the same applies to the modern story of the novel. The place of Muslims in today's England, the issue of child abandonment and finally the secrets we keep and how they affect our lives. None of them were explored and it's a shame.As I was making progress with Joinson's novel, the most important issue that I couldn't stop thinking about was how much better off this author would have been, had she abandoned the idea of two storylines and two timelines packed into one book, and instead wrote two separate books. I could even see a potential for a trilogy here. Both the story of Eve and Frieda could easily stand on their own if given proper, singular focus each. So maybe, next time we'll see Suzanne Joinson putting out a fantastic story with strong female characters (I believe that's what she was going for in this book), instead of an okay novel with a potential. I hope so. There's much to like and appreciate in Joinson's writing and enough promise in it to warrant my looking forward to what we'll read from her next.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book. Its premise is unusual in that half of it takes place in Kashgar in the early 1900's while the other half is in modern-day England. In Kashgar, three young women go off to be missionaries to the Moslems, and the women suffer all sorts of deprivations. In England, meanwhile, Frieda returns from a trip abroad to discover that she has inherited the entire estate of a woman who is unknown to her. She also finds a man sleeping outside the door to her apartment her first evening at home. The plot features all kinds of unexpected twists and turns as it links these two diverse stories. An excellent read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This debut novel has a lot going on. There are two stories. The first is set in 1923 and involves a lady missionary who has found a disciple in Eva's sister Lizzie. Concerned about her epileptic sister, and not wanting to miss out on an adventure, Eva joins the duo as they head to Turkestan, to help with the missionary work (though not really a believer) and to write a travel book about the area. That book is named the same as this novel. The journey is hard, and things go horribly wrong for the women when they stop to help a very young outcast girl who was in labor at the side of the road. The girl dies and the women are put under arrest for her death, as well as given the task of taking care of the new baby. The area at the time is rife with unrest thanks to the very uneasy cohabitation of the Muslim and the Chinese in the area. Political unrest, religion, women's issues and sexuality make for tinder for a fire just waiting to explode.The second story is told in the modern day about an independent young woman, Frieda, who travels the world yet still feels a bit lost. One night she finds a man sleeping outside her door. A gentle soul, she brings him a blanket and a pillow, thus striking up a very interesting relationship that deepens as Frieda is informed of an inheritance from a woman she has never heard of. The true magic of this book is that these two narratives slowly twine together creating a story that is far larger than its parts. The subtle and very literary writing is simply brilliant. This is an astonishing debut of a writer who is about to become very, very well known.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Romance, exoticism and travel team up in this unusual debut.The story is set in the stunning remote Muslim area along an old China silk route. Millicent is a domineering missionary out to convert local Muslims to Christianity. Her sister, Evangeline, the narrator and keeper of a diary, has no interest in establishing a mission. Her secret passion is to write a travel guide about the Kashgar desert. Another sister, Lizzie, a rather incidental character, worships Millicent much to Evangeline’s dismay. The story fluctuates between 1923 and the contemporary life of Frieda, a London resident who is an Arabic youth specialist. She is a communiqué of the Islamic youth to a European “think tank.” She becomes involved on several levels with a young Yemeni man. The plot eventually links them back to Evangeline.Evangeline evidently has a charming sense of humor, but that aspect of her personality is minimally developed. This reader wanted to hear more from the cyclist who noted in her diary, “Difficulties to overcome: There is the mounting difficulty and the steering difficulty and the pedaling difficulty; and then there is the general difficulty of doing all these things together.” This is not chick lit, but a study of opposing cultures and religious fanaticism. The title is a fetching hook, but the lack of development of the travel guide was a disappointment. The main theme is the failed relationships of women, but it is wrapped up with a bow of originality and alluring description.The Amazon Vine program graciously provided the review copy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Actually two stories, the first in 1923 in Turkestan and the second in the present. The first story started quickly, with Millicent, an dictatorial missionary and two sisters stranded in Kasgar. The second story started out slower but I ended up liking it more. Loved the history, the clashes between Christians and Muslims as well as the political climate under a Chinese ruled Turkistan. Frieda and Tayeb were my favorite characters and both stories highlighted the importance of family history as well as trying to break culture barriers when you are a stranger to that country. Beautifully written this was a most interesting and different read. ARC from NetGalley.