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A review by profbanks
The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan
5.0
This is like the mascarpone cheesecake of books: incredibly rich, satisfying in even the smallest bite, but absolutely addictive. The sheer amount of historical and setting research made the historian in me happy in the heart -- so much detail, I could've taken a bath in it. The author manages not to turn it into either a headlong rush from one significant event to the next, or a patronizing anthropological study of an exotic time and place.
The main characters are all real people in Mughal India, and she isn't just filling the lacunae in the historical record with vapid drama. In this case, there are so many records and legends to choose from that she was able to assemble a fairly plausible narrative, though I'm sure scholars of the period would find points to which they could take exception (can't we always, though...). And the female protagonist of the story, the twentieth and most beloved wife of Emperor Jahangir, is a fantastic example of a real, powerful, brilliant woman in power in the pre-modern world.
I'm not sure how the series will carry on, with all the personnel changes that a historical drama necessarily includes, but I'm definitely going to keep reading.
The main characters are all real people in Mughal India, and she isn't just filling the lacunae in the historical record with vapid drama. In this case, there are so many records and legends to choose from that she was able to assemble a fairly plausible narrative, though I'm sure scholars of the period would find points to which they could take exception (can't we always, though...). And the female protagonist of the story, the twentieth and most beloved wife of Emperor Jahangir, is a fantastic example of a real, powerful, brilliant woman in power in the pre-modern world.
I'm not sure how the series will carry on, with all the personnel changes that a historical drama necessarily includes, but I'm definitely going to keep reading.