From Amazon....."Opening dramatically with the horrors of the 2005 London bombings, this is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child's struggle to come to terms with loss. London. On a bright July morning a series of bombs brings the capital to a halt. Simon Swann, a medic from one of the large teaching hospitals, is searching frantically amongst the chaos and the rubble. All around police sirens and ambulances are screaming but Simon does not hear. He is out of breath because he has been running, and he is distraught. But who is he looking for? To find out we have first to go back thirty years to a small island in the Indian Ocean where a little girl named Alice Fonseka is learning to ride a bicycle on the beach. The island is Sri Lanka, and its community is on the brink of civil war. Alice's life is about to change forever. Soon she will have to leave for England, abandoning her beloved grandfather, and accompanied by her mother Sita, a woman broken by a series of terrible events. In London, Alice grows into womanhood. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she has a son. Slowly she fulfils her grandfather's prophecy and becomes an artist. Eventually she finds true love. But London in the twenty-first century is a mass of migration and suspicion. The war on terror has begun and everyone, even Simon Swann, middle class, rational, medic that he is, will be caught up in this war in the most unexpected and terrible way."

I found this novel a little difficult to get in to at first but was glad I stayed with it, as it developed into a story with complex themes with vivid descriptions of people and places. I liked how the author crafted the novel by using different narrative view points to explore the central themes of the novel. I felt I needed to do a little research on the history of Ceylon/Sri Lanka to allow me to fully immerse myself in the beginning of the novel, and to begin to understand the troubles being developed between the Singhalese and Tamil peoples.

Highly recommended and being placed in Shroffland and ApoloniaX' Global Village VBB

Sending to ApoliniaX for the Global Village VBB, enjoy!

Just received this in the mail.
And a bar of chocolate!!!
Thank you so much, sing-on-a-star!
Looking forward to reading it.
It will go to Shroffland then.

This is an amazing book, written in a beautiful, poetic style – very much in contrast to what always lurks in the background: Sri Lanka’s civil war, whose brutality seeps into every-day life. The main theme though is loss and how to deal with it, loss of beloved people, loss of home.
The book starts in 2005 and the plot is then wound back and one wonders who the woman is, that the doctor is so worried about. Alice?
Not just Alice, the main protagonist, but also her mother and her grandfather are so well characterised they easily came alive in front of my inner eyes (some other characters lack a bit in depth, but they are less important). The descriptions of Ceylon/Sri Lanka are equally superb and it becomes obvious that Roma Tearne is not just a writer, but also an artist. But what I found most impressing is the way emotions are depicted, in a very powerful way, without ever overdoing it.
It isn’t a happy story, but one that got under my skin, and it will certainly stay with me for a while. Absolutely recommendable.

Travelling to Shroffland now

Thank you! I received this book 3 weeks ago while I was out of town. I am looking forward to reading it, and appreciate ApoloniaX sending it along so quickly! You needn't have rushed, since I have so many books to read at present. ;-)