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A review by mmrohbock
Darjeeling Inheritance by Liz Harris
Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.
DNF @ 25%
After reading Tapestry of Light by Kimberly Duffy, I was looking for more books on the colonization of India and how it impacted the country. This book held so much promise as a historic romance set in Darjeeling on a tea plantation. The British fought over the land surrounding Darjeeling to have a foothold in the Himalayas between Bhutan and Nepal. Later, they found the climate suitable for tea so they converted it to tea gardens aka tea plantation where locals worked for low wages to support the East India Co. Unfortunately I had to go learn this on my own as I read this book rather than from this book itself.
There was so much promise in the premise of this novel and I enjoyed the descriptions of walking the lands of the tea garden. Liz Harris's descriptions were gorgeous but the book fell short for me. I ultimately had high expectations for the historic fiction aspects when this book is more a romance with historic elements (a woman must be married rather than run a tea plantation!). In the first 25% of this book, it failed to touch on deeper topics on how British colonialism impacted Darjeeling and its inhabitants. As a read I was left feeling like Darjeeling and the tea plantation was a convenient setting for a novel that chose not to recognize the trauma created by tea plantations that still exist today. I think this was not the book for me and will look for some type of history book on this region instead.
After reading Tapestry of Light by Kimberly Duffy, I was looking for more books on the colonization of India and how it impacted the country. This book held so much promise as a historic romance set in Darjeeling on a tea plantation. The British fought over the land surrounding Darjeeling to have a foothold in the Himalayas between Bhutan and Nepal. Later, they found the climate suitable for tea so they converted it to tea gardens aka tea plantation where locals worked for low wages to support the East India Co. Unfortunately I had to go learn this on my own as I read this book rather than from this book itself.
There was so much promise in the premise of this novel and I enjoyed the descriptions of walking the lands of the tea garden. Liz Harris's descriptions were gorgeous but the book fell short for me. I ultimately had high expectations for the historic fiction aspects when this book is more a romance with historic elements (a woman must be married rather than run a tea plantation!). In the first 25% of this book, it failed to touch on deeper topics on how British colonialism impacted Darjeeling and its inhabitants. As a read I was left feeling like Darjeeling and the tea plantation was a convenient setting for a novel that chose not to recognize the trauma created by tea plantations that still exist today. I think this was not the book for me and will look for some type of history book on this region instead.