I really enjoyed the middle of this book best - it started out slow, but got better, and then towards the end, it felt like the author was more setting up the characters for another chapter than leading towards a conclusion. And yes, when I checked the author's page, it turns out this book was written as a prequel to another book. Still, I found the story of nineteenth-century India and Bengal interesting and the characters stood out. I was frustrated by a couple of the storylines, especially Estelle, who appears primarily in the middle of the book then disappears until the very end. Overall, an interesting book with valuable insight into colonial India. ( )

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1519343800
Ming does a nice review of this. My only disagreement is that the book is "enough to get one through". Not for me, I stopped a little over half way. I could not take any more melodrama. ( )

Flame Tree Road was recommended to me by my husband’s grandmother, and I immediately put it on my wishlist because I was interested in reading Indian historical fiction. I was pretty excited to receive it recently as part of LibraryThing’s secret Santa book exchange.

The protagonist of Flame Tree Road is Biren, a boy from a small Indian village in the 1870s who grows up to be a Cambridge educated lawyer crusading for women’s rights in India. There isn’t really much of a plot, the book is just a series of vignettes from his life and the lives of people he knows, told from an omniscient perspective. We follow him from childhood to his eighties, although the bulk of the book takes place when he is a young man.

I enjoyed how atmospheric this book was, it really drew you into the sights, sounds, and smells of its setting. You feel like you’re actually there with the characters. However, the book took the same poetic tone towards descriptions of people, though, and I didn’t like that as much, it was a little bit too romantic for me.

Biren was a good character, but he didn’t seem to have any flaws. There are even multiple scenes from the viewpoint of people that meet him whose entire point is how impressed they are by Biren. Secondary characters are not very fleshed out – they’re only described in how they relate to Biren, and don’t seem like real people. Not every book needs to have strong characters, but since this one didn’t have much of a plot, I was hoping for some character growth or change. This especially frustrated me in regards to the events at the end of the book – given how perfect Biren seemed to be, I didn’t really buy some of the events that happened to him, they seem like they could have been preventable. And if they weren’t, there needed to be some flaw in Biren’s character to explain why he wasn’t able or willing to take action.

Overall, it was pretty light reading, and it was different from the kind of book I usually read, so I enjoyed it. ( )

I received an ARC of this book through Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a prequel to Teatime for the Firefly, but can also be read on its own.

This is a beautiful novel that has well-rounded characters, an interesting storyline, and outstanding writing. I absolutely love it.

I have not read Patel's first book, Teatime for the Firefly, but after reading this one, I am definitely going to. Patel has an amazing writing style and writes with such pure emotion. Her characters feel so real and you can't help but love them.

I also really enjoyed the plot lines relating to women's rights in multiple cultures and how the characters view women. These issues were seamlessly woven into the story, creating interesting discussions about gender and equality between the characters.

Simply amazing. I cannot wait to read more by Patel. ( )

Shona Patel’s second novel offers a view of late 19th to early 20th century British Colonial India through the eyes of a brilliant young man of humble birth who makes good due to the vision of his educated father and the patronage of British officials. Biren Roy grows up in a river village in Bengal, where his father works in a jute mill for a British company and tutors his sons in his spare time. Tragedy and good fortune propel Biren to success as a student at Cambridge and then a lawyer in India. Along the way, he never loses his goal of improving the condition of women in India, a goal shaped in part by his father’s enlightened attitudes and his own sympathy for his mother, his wife, and an outcast widow who lives by a temple. While his motives are noble, at times his attitudes seem too modern for his era. Like a duck who sheds water, Biren seems surprisingly free from the biases of the 19th century, whether those of India or of England. The novel also offers a relatively uncomplicated view of British Colonialism: as if British laws, education, and justice have come to rescue India from the murk of superstition. As Biren states, “But remember the mighty power of the British rule can be used for our good, as well” (370). The British characters are portrayed as avuncular patrons, albeit class-conscious, profit-driven, and unpredictable.

As its title might suggest, Flame Tree Road is studded with love stories: between his mother and father, Biren and his wife, as well as with an upper class English woman. This personal story takes the lead, while Biren’s reforms and advocacy for Indian women remain in the background. India itself is described in rich detail for its interesting foods, colorful clothing, exotic rituals, and crafts such as pottery-making and weaving. Patel is at her best when the story veers into tragedy--it is then that the characters’ emotions and the complexity of Indian society come to life. There are also some nice scenes of friendship and intimacy, such as when Biren’s mother Shibani has her hair oiled and washed by her neighbor. Or when Biren finds in his wife’s trunk half of a lost Russian nesting doll he had given his daughter, a discovery that triggers both hope and grief. Symbols like this one-- prophecies, flame trees, cobras and even a broken umbrella--help heighten suspense and unify the story in a book that covers almost a century. Despite the successes in his life, which come in part from British education and patronage, Biren eventually pays a price for his difference from his own society. Near the end of the book, a holy man’s prophecy comes fatefully true, leaving the reader to wonder which is more powerful: reason or superstition. ( )