The betrayal of the blood lily

Well, this feels complicated!

So I want to say off the bat that I was a little worried going into this - more worried than I was when I first read it, mostly because of the setting: India. And during this time, India was being colonized by European powers, with the British winning out in the long run. Given how colonization absolutely fucked India up on several levels, I was concerned about how the political and social situation of India would be portrayed, as well as how any Indian characters would be depicted.

And I will say: some of it I think was done okay, but some of it was not. In terms of the political situation, I think those were handled fairly okay, in the sense that the struggle of the Indian city-states against the machinations of both the British and the French to bring more of the subcontinent under their control was touched upon, but it wasn???t something that the novel went into with a lot of depth, sticking only to tightly-controlled specifics that were pertinent to the plot and the specific moment in history that the story was taking place in. That was fair, in my opinion: the author had a specific plot in mind, and used aspects of the history that would work for that plot, without getting bogged down in too many details - details that, I think, they might not be best placed to talk about, given that they are a white American and some things are just better told by Indian writers and historians. 

This whole situation therefore brought a certain depth the overall plot, which I appreciated because it also upped the stakes significantly. Prior to this book the plots had been rather simplistic; things had been ramping up starting in the fourth book, but this is the first one in the series that REALLY feels like a proper spy thriller. The complex, tangled loyalties of the characters and the equally complex and tangled relations between the Hindu Maratha leaders (Mahratta in the book), the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad, and the colonizer British and French forces, all make for some fantastic moments of tension and intrigue throughout the book. 

I was, however, disappointed in the way certain Indian characters were used. One character felt like all he was meant to do was function as the ???native guide/friend??? to Alex, the white male protagonist, and I wish said character had gotten a bit more depth to them than they got. I also wish that some of the more prominent Indian female historical figures had gotten some airtime - in particular, Khair-un-Nissa, wife of James Kirkpatrick. I guess her not appearing was the author???s way of making sure they didn???t muck up their portrayal of her, but given that the famous poet and courtesan Mah Laqa Bai puts in an appearance (and one that is pretty well-done in my opinion), I think it wouldn???t have been too terrible to have Khair-un-Nissa make an appearance, however, brief. After all, there are chunks of the story that takes place in the Residency, and the whole point of sending Frederick and Penelope to Hyderabad in the first place was because Wellesley strongly disapproved of Kirkpatrick???s marriage to her.

As for the romance between Penelope and Alex, I REALLY enjoyed that as well, because they are both fascinating characters. In Alex???s case, his complicated relationship to his father and brother Jack, as well as his own principles and ideologies, make navigating the political landscape of the novel???s setting rather difficult for him, but interesting for the reader. It???s also through his past that we get a glimpse of the racism that was prevalent during the period, given that some of his half-siblings were themselves half-Indian and therefore suffered discrimination.  

And then there is Penelope. She???s loud, she???s brazen, she???s rebellious, she doesn???t think too much about consequences before getting into something. She is, in short, the ultimate Bad Girl, in the way that Regency women and even 21st century woman would recognize. But it also becomes very clear, fairly early on in this novel, that Penelope???s rebellious and frankly self-destructive and self-sabotaging tendencies spring from a deep well of trauma that goes all the way back to her family. I felt deeply for her while I was reading, even as I felt a deep urge to shake her too. But that just made her even more fun to read about I think.

Anyway, this was definitely an uptick in terms of quality of the books overall, sliding into some genuinely dangerous territory for once, and while the Indian colonization aspect was handled fairly well for the most part, I still think that it could have been rounded out a bit more.