Not Yet Drown'd: A Novel

By Peg Kingman

Book Overview

Catherine MacDonald is astonished to receive from her twin brother--who had reportedly drowned a year earlier, in the monsoon floods of 1821--a kashmiri shawl, a caddy of unusual tea, and a sheaf of traditional bagpipe music in his handwriting. When had he sent it? And why had he retitled a certain tune "Not Yet Drown'd"?Irresistibly, Catherine is drawn to India to search for answers. With her stepdaughter and their two maids--one an enigmatic Hindu, the other a runaway American slave--she follows an obscure trail of tea, opium, and bagpipe music. In the course of their journey they meet botanists, smugglers, engineers, soldiers, and artists--as well as love and betrayal. And as they copy, translate, and finally understand certain Scottish and Indian paintings and music, they discover unsuspected truths about the man they are seeking.This luminous and accomplished romance is the author's first novel.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393065464
• ISBN13: 9780393065466
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Great story

This is the best book I've read in awhile. The story has a lot of depth and subplots. Amazingly written. I can't wait to read Peg Kingman's next book.

Gripping story, exquisitely written

Are you craving exquisitely crafted language, erudition, mystery and adventure; beautifully drawn characters that are completely engaging? This is the book for you. By turns it is wise, funny, thrilling and learned. I highly recommend it. This is a work of fiction that gets its facts right--you can learn a lot from it. I was drawn into the story and found it hard to put the book down. I enjoyed traveling with the main character through Scotland, India and back in time.

A terrific rad

A fascinating and compelling read. Great characters. Superb writing. Tremendous cultural and historical detail. This book deserves a large and enthusiastic readership.

Takes you on a Journey!

Richly detailed in historical color, takes you on journeys and adventures from Scotland to India and in between. Not only do you finish the story feeling like you have traveled around the world, but you enjoy learning about 19th Century history, art, politics, economics, different cultures, love and of course, tea!

"We cannot always have everything we want."

In 1822, newly-widowed Catherine MacDonald is settling with her stepdaughter, Grace, into her brother, Hector's Edinburgh home. Recovering from the accidental death of her husband, Catherine is also grieving for her twin brother, Sandy, drowned in the Indian monsoons of 1821. An accomplished bagpipe musician, Sandy's true calling was the cultivation of tea, her sibling convinced that tea could be grown not only in China, but in India. Unfortunately, Sandy runs afoul of his employers, the East India Company, and is assigned to the opium fields shortly before his death in the monsoon season. When Catherine receives a package, the address penned in her twin's hand, she begins to wonder why the body was never found and whether her brother could still be alive. The package contains a Kashmiri shawl, a sheaf of handwritten music for bagpipes, including one titled "Not Yet Drown'd" and an ornate box filled with what appears to be tea leaves. Before Catherine can pursue her thoughts about Sandy's fate, more serious events transpire that threaten her security and that of eight-year-old Grace. Having traveled all the way from America, a woman arrives on Hector's doorstep announcing her intention to deliver the child to blood relatives in Virginia. Catherine refuses, unleashing the stranger's wrath and a promise to return with the assistance of the law. Although Catherine prepares to flee, she seriously underestimates the perseverance of this woman, who manages a great coup, plucking the hapless Grace from the family. There ensues a dramatic chase and attempted rescue, Catherine suddenly on board ship with her brother, Hector, bound for India, where he intends to test the innovations he has made to the current methods of steamship travel. And Catherine isn't alone. Besides a trembling Grace, Catherine has added two more women to her party, the slave who accompanied the lady from Virginia and an enigmatic Indian maid, who has been trying to gain passage to India for her own reasons. One could get lost in the modernization of steamship design or the complicated pages of bagpipe music that Catherine diligently copies to send back to her sister-in-law in Edinburgh, or even the day to day trials of life aboard ship. But the real drama of this novel is Catherine's journey to the interior of India in search of information about her brother's fate, the romance she does her best to sabotage and the gradual unfolding of the ayah's shocking story, filled with tales of ritual and tradition and a great love gone astray. India is the jewel of this crown, all events conspiring to focus on a country still in the throes of Britain's imperialist agenda, the pampered English oblivious to the lives of those around them, save the administration of their creature comforts. Yet somehow Catherine manages to overcome every obstacle with the help of her Indian maid-turned-confidant, their friendship blooming as the weeks pass. From fog-shrouded Scotland to the dense jungles of In