East of the Sun

In the 1920's women in England went to India in what was known as the Fishing Fleet to find husbands. If they were unsuccessful, they were known as a "Returned Empty". Rose is going to India to marry an army officer she met briefly at a party in England. Victoria (Tor) who will be her bridemaid is desperate to find a husband and get away from her overbearing mother. Viva is a young woman with a mysterious past who is returning to India to retrieve her family's belongings kept by a neighbor after her mother's death. She has been hired to be their chaperone. She is also responsible for a 16 year old boy who has been kicked out of his boarding school and is being sent back to his family. This wonderful novel is based on fact and the stories told to the author by a neighbor who did go to India on the Fishing Fleet, found a husband and stayed for 30 years. Every scene is vividly portrayed and India came alive for me. I liked all of the girls but Tor especially appealed to me. I wanted her to succeed - she was always so desperate not to be a "returned empty". Even tho this is a long book there are no dull parts and it goes fast because its hard to put it down. Also included are an interview with the author and a very helpful reader's guide.

East of the Sun is the story of warm, steamy, conflicted India through the eyes of three young Englishwomen. In 1928, Viva, Rose and Tor journey from England aboard a P & O steamer as what was colloquially known as the "Fishing Fleet"--that is, the young English ladies who went to India to catch a husband. With vivid, gorgeous prose, Gregson weaves a heartbreaking and suspenseful tale of love, politics and gender. Viva, the elder of the trio, is haunted by her lost family, Rose, the beautiful sunny creature who has made a match with a stranger, and Tor, who has the wrong body shape for the 1920s and suffers from a critical mother, each struggle to find their place in the world, to find who they are as women, and to understand what it is life wants from them. This journey is painful--physically and mentally. The knowledge each woman must face is not sugar-coated, nor are the ending wrapped up in neat little packages. Their journey is told against the backdrop of the Raj's last gasps for breath. Gandhi has become influential in India, and his nonviolent demonstrations and the conflict between white and brown, Muslim and Hindu, is frightening in its intensity. The questions raised in the book remain unanswered to this day, particularly the effects of the Raj on both the Indians and the British. Vivi in particular is caught in this maelstrom due first to a mentally-disturbed ex-charge, and secondly to her discovery of the multitude of abandoned and homeless Indian children. Gregson packs a lot into this story: the every day lives of sahibs and memsahibs, the social pecking order, the restlessness of young women freed from pre-WWI constraints, and so on, but it is done so wonderfully that the pages fly by quickly. And though this is historical fiction, there are really good bits of romance in the book, and the trials faced by Vivi, Rose and Tor in their pursuit of finding themselves earns that romance. From beginning to end, the story is engrossing, and don't be shocked to find the book keeps you awake into all hours of the night!

This may be the first book of the year to earn the title of Epic Read. To me, an Epic Read is a book where I could easily imagine a full series out of the storylines. That doesn't mean that I think the story would have been better in a multiple book format, it simply means that this book was jam packed with storyline and kept me intrigued for days. East of the Sun, by Julia Gregson, had a main storyline and multiple branching storylines that really keep the reader involved. This is part of what made the book so wonderful to me. We begin with the story of Viva, an orphaned woman who carries a great deal of pain with her. She is quite, unwilling to share herself with others and broken by passed tragedy. In East of the Sun, we follow Viva as she makes a life altering decision to act as a Chaperone to a group of young adults travelling to India. She hopes to make a new life for herself in this exotic land, but what she finds there may be much more than she is prepared to handle. Will she be able to protect and guide the girls she is chaperoning on their journey to this exciting country? What about the mysterious young man she is also in charge of? When the world around him starts to turn upside down, will she be able to help him find the surface again or will she be sucked under with him? Viva's love life leaves something to be desired, but her dark past keeps her from allowing herself any form of happiness. Will she be able to overcome her own emotional issues or is she destined to find herself alone? As we follow Viva along her journey of self discovery, we also get to visit with Rose and Tor, the two young women she has been hired to chaperone on their voyage to India. Rose, a blonde haired beauty is off on her way to be married to Jack, a Captain and a fine catch according to her family. In the time when many unions are formed out of convenience or to increase status, Rose knows that marrying Jack is the best thing for her and yet, she can't help but feel anxious to be marrying a man that she hasn't set eyes on for months. A short engagement and even shorter courtship weigh down on her as she travels the great waters to India to meet her new life. Does this young girl hold enough space in her heart to love her fiancé and her beloved family? Will her future even recognize her as she steps off the boat? A tale of happiness, heartbreak, intrigue and pain follow Rose as she learns that fairy tale happiness might not really exist. Victoria, or Tor for short, is Rose's best friend. She's accompanying Rose to play chief bridesmaid at the impending wedding. Her own love life, much like Viva's is severely lacking, but not for lack of trying. Tor, and Tor's mother, both wish nothing more than to see Tor settled down with a loving and supportive husband. Only problem is, Tor is a larger girl with horrible self esteem, a fact that she is constantly reminded of by her mother. When a possible engagement falls through due to Tor's habit of trying too hard

What a wonderful, transporting, endearing historical fiction this is! It's about the "Fishing Fleet:" English upper class women sent to India to find husbands, in this case in 1928. Tor and Rose are 18 year olds, best friends. Rose has met the man, a soldier in India, who will be her husband four times. Tor goes to be in her wedding party, and hopes to find herself a husband before she is "returned empty," back to England and her disapproving mother. They are accompanied by a chaperone, Viva, just a few years older than they are, who in her poverty, takes on a third charge, the bipolar 16 year old Guy, who adds homegrown mystery and menace into the mix. All the women are seeking adventure and on the long ship voyage meet a doctor Frank, who Tor likes, but he is drawn to Viva. Viva was born in India, is an orphan and is going for a trunk with some of her parents' possessions still in India. Viva, poor and alone, walls herself off from others. Rose is beautiful, so she doesn't have to try very hard, and she is quite perceptive. Tor is overweight, but cheerful and good company. All the women find what they sought, but more important than that they find friendship with each other, that saves them. This would be a terrific book for a book club! Highly recommended!

Gregson has written a particularly English tale set in India in 1928, during the British Occupation. Trouble is on the horizon, manifesting in small outbreaks of violence and civil disobedience, Gandhi's increasing popularity and a few cracks in the façade of British superiority. The English live like royalty in Occupied India, treating their servants as children, enjoying luxuries they could never afford at home. Gregson captures all of this extraordinary time, the arrogance, entitlement, boorish behavior of the occupiers as the country seethes with discontent and a slow-brewing rebellion. Among the new arrivals on one of the infamous "Fishing Fleet", the Kaiser-l-Hind- where single women come in hope of finding suitable matches- are three young women and a sixteen-year-old boy. Viva Holloway has advertised herself as a chaperone, traveling to Bombay to retrieve the effects of her long-deceased parents. Although hardly older than her charges, Viva, who hopes to make a living as a writer, has thus far successfully reinvented herself. Her new charges view Viva as the epitome of sophistication. This is the nature of such journeys, an opportunity for new beginnings or to escape less-than-hopeful futures. Rose Wetherby will be married to a military man in Bombay, a man whose face she can barely remember. Rose's bridesmaid, Victoria Sowerby (Tor), yearns to be swept off her feet by a suitor, avoiding a confrontation with a disapproving mother as a "returned empty". The more distressing member of the group is Guy Glover, a sulky boy meeting with his parents after being expelled from boarding school. It is Guy who puts the lie to the fantasy of this adventure, a reminder that paradise is filled with unexpected danger for the uninitiated. The intimate dramas of these young women are played out in a vast landscape, where the English foolishly cling to a pretentious society and the Occupation has not yet failed, both Rose and Tor welcomed into a social class that recognizes its own. It is through Viva's personal struggles that the beauty of the country and its people are revealed. Immediately enchanted and at home with a variety of people and cultures, Viva lives in a poverty-riddled neighborhood, coming to terms with her past in order to embrace the future. Her journey is perhaps the most profound and symbolic: "Damaged people were always protecting their secret, damaged selves." Gregson captures the essence of 1928 India, her protagonists embarking on their new lives in a country on the cusp of great change, a wonderful melding of culture and aspirations, a loss of innocence and birth of hope. Luan Gaines/2009.