by Boomert - In the Shadow of the Palace by Judith A Simpson 18 Jan 2010

Set in mid-13th century India, In the Shadow of the Palace tells of three princesses who are kidnapped on the eve of their betrothals. The queen of a neighbouring kingdom intends to marry them forcibly to her ailing son. Rani, 13 years old and the middle of the three girls escapes, but hides in the palace under their captor’s nose as she plots to rescue her sisters. When the girls do manage to escape, the youngest of them is immediately carried off by another set of kidnappers, setting the stage for the second novel of a planned trilogy. Unfortunately, I felt that nothing about this book was successful. The constant use of extremely short declarative sentences did not permit any sort of narrative flow. The action was choppy, disjointed and unbelievable. Although the author wanted to create a spunky feminine heroine, the lack of coherence made her unbelievable as well. The book needed better developed characters and well-plotted adventure. The author loves India and clearly wanted to portray its traditional customs and beliefs without modernising or westernising her characters. Unfortunately, this nod to historical accuracy is lost in general clumsiness. For middle readers, aged nine to 11.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (March 2009, Vol 88, No 6.) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker.