Call me shallow, but I only downloaded this book to learn about Freddie Mercury's birthplace. However, that's not to say that I wasn't completely captivated by the story and the characters once I started reading. Set during the 1964 revolution - when Freddie and his family left the island for England (just to continue a theme) - the novel follows the lives of two families, a young Arab girl called Fatima who is separated from her family and sheltered by her ayah's brother, and Elizabeth, the daughter of a British colonial, whose escape from Zanzibar proves equally traumatic. Most of the narrative - and the best part - is taken up with Fatima's story, adjusting to the post-revolution poverty, politics and danger of Zanzibar. She is a brave and resilient heroine, keeping up with her education and refusing to be browbeaten by the bigotry and corruption of daily life. Elizabeth's story picks up in England, fifty years later, and is perhaps the weakest part of the novel - her father's treasure hunt is satisfying but far-fetched to say the least.

Reading about Zanzibar was both evocative and instructive, inspiring and depressing. The senses are stimulated just from descriptions of the heat and the spices, but the aftermath of the revolution on the people of the small island, now officially part of Tanzania, is the flipside of so much natural beauty. Well worth a read, and not just for the Freddie Mercury connection! ( )