Claire Scobie

The Pagoda Tree is a story set in the mid 1700's, of a young Indian girl, destined to be a dancer at the temple. Trained by her mother and the aging gifted courtesan, Palani, Maya is to be presented to the Prince. Family tragedy and war interfere with Maya's intended path. India is gripped by war and famine, and the people suffer at the hands of the British soldiers and merchants, trying to secure wealth for themselves. I did not really warm to any of the characters and I was glad to finish it.

I struggled with this book, I liked the story but the writing was poor. The story moved between a priest who was on a self-imposed exile from London and a child learning the ways of a temple dancer in the mid 1700s in India. The transition between the two stories was not handled well, and I was often left wondering what was/had happened. I abandoned the book at around 1/3 of the way through.

This book suffers from poor editing with a number of spelling errors. It is also difficult to imagine someone in India in the 1770s wondering what time it is back home in England.