Author: Shazia Omar
Publication Date: August 23rd 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Bloomsbury India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Flipkart || Infibeam ||
Blurb Description: The Mughal Viceroy of Bengal in 1685, Lord Shayista Khan, was an indomitable warrior who knew no fear. Under is governance Bengal has become the centre of commerce and culture, a veritable treasure chest for greedy enemies: Maratha Warriors, Arakan Rajas, Hindu Zamindars and even the East India Company. Among all this opulence, there is only one possession that Shayista holds dear: a dark diamond knows as the Kalinoor.
Kalinoor is cursed however, and Shayista is fated to suffer the torments it brings - including, perhaps, the ruin of Bengal. With a French beauty, a Portuguese Pirate, and a Bengali dancer as his allies, Shayista must find a way to save his Enlightened Empire from his enemies - and to keep the Dark Diamond out of the hands of a diabolical Pir who wants nothing more than to bring Bengal into darkness once again.
I started reading this book quite a long while ago, and for
some reason I couldn’t quite get into it.
I finally picked it up again yesterday, and then proceeded to
devour it in just one sitting! Dark Diamond is filled with romance, tragedy,
greed, pirates, magic and is an adventure you’ll never forget.
“I live in the Alley
among the squalid and the forgotten. Your opulence is nauseating, built on bones
of defeated kingdoms. You pursue destruction. You forget that the purpose of
life is not division, it is unity.”
Mughal India, the late 1600’s. The British East India Company
is making its first footholds in India, establishing trade and forming
relationships, waiting patiently to take over.
Lord Shayista Khan
rules Bengal not with his heard, but with fear. A rumoured Wizard who does not
age, a supposed brutish and uncaring man, he is also in possession of the
rarest diamond from the mines of Kollur – the Kalinoor; the Dark Diamond.
Inside, Lord Shayista Khan is Talib, a man who has suffered
the tragedy of living when all those he loves have died; died because he wasn’t
enough to save them.
Champa was never
one to settle down and marry like custom, and her father, dictates she should.
She spends her time helping her grandfather, the local Pir (a Mughal magician
and healer) and teaching the young girls in her locality dance and music among
other things. Her grandfather’s life work has been searching for the diamond
Shayista has hidden somewhere.
Madeline, a
French Fugitive, is on a mission to find the diamond mines of Kollur to barter
for social standing and a rich enough husband. She enlists the help of a pirate
to take her to Bengal.
In the quest for the possession of the rarest diamond on the
world, we are transported into the minds of very different people, learning
what makes them tick, their fears and sources of greatest joy. In the search of
a cursed object, we see Bengal, and India, in its finest – luxury, culture and
trade at its pinnacle, along with the death, closed mindedness and damnation.
The only thing about this novel that I didn’t like was a
certain someone being alive after all at the ending. It seemed unrealistic, too
unreal in a real novel and I wish it hadn’t happened.
Dark Diamond is unlike
any adventure you’ve ever experienced before, so buckle in and get ready to
fall in love.
4.5 Stars!
What is your favourite adventure novel? Have you read any adventure novels based in India? What do you think of a cursed black diamond?
I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
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