The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas
Found on the Adult Fiction shelves at THOMAS
Plot Summary : Spanning decades and moving from the stark beauty of the Welsh landscape to the Himalayas and Kashmir, this is a story of bravery, courage and love. A lifetime of secrets woven into the finest of silks.
Newlyweds Nerys and Evan Watkins leave Wales behind them to take up a missionary posting in India, in the 1930s. In the Kashmir lakeside town of Srinagar — home to the British, rosewood houseboats and the Club — Nerys gets caught up in a world of dancing and gossip, which is a million miles from her life as a preacher’s wife. With her husband away on mission work in the snow-capped Himalayas, she is inexorably drawn to the enigmatic German mountaineer, Rainer Stamm.
As the beating drums of war draw nearer, the women who are left behind in Srinagar form an extraordinary bond. But by the time the men return life has changed beyond measure for all of them.
Years later, when Mair Ellis clears out her father’s house, she finds an exquisite antique shawl. Wrapped within it is a lock of child’s hair. Tracing her grandparents’ roots back to India and Kashmir, Mair attempts to unlock the secrets of the past — a journey that will change her life forever. (Source : Fantastic Fiction)
Comments : A complicated entanglement of family secrets, love during wartime and dangerous liaisons. It is an easy read and quite delightful.
Reviewed by : Carolyn
Readers in the Mist 