The Temple Dancer: A Novel of India

By John Speed

Book Overview

India, 1657.When Maya, a graceful, young temple dancer with a mysterious past, is sold into slavery, she enters a world of intrigue, violence, and forbidden love. Bought by a Portuguese trader and sold as a concubine to the dissolute vizier of Bijapur, she embarks on a treacherous journey.In a caravan led by the dangerous settlement man Da Gama, she travels by elephant on the hostile road to Bijapur, joined by Geraldo, a Portuguese adventurer, and Pathan, a handsome prince who carries a dark secret. Together with Lucinda, a beautiful, spoiled young Goan heiress, and the manipulative eunuch Slipper, they climb the windswept mountain road through the Western Ghats.When their caravan is attacked by bandits, the travelers' lives are turned upside down. In the aftermath, Maya and Lucinda suddenly find themselves stranded in a strange, exotic world, a world filled with passion, romance, and deception, pure love and lurking evil, where nothing is as it seems and the two women are faced with great temptation as well as heart-wrenching decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.Greed, politics, commitment, courage, love, and intolerance mesh to form a vibrant Indian tapestry. With spectacular settings, unforgettable characters, fierce sensuality, and intense scholarship, this adventure-packed novel marks the debut of an exciting new storyteller. The Temple Dancer is the first volume of John Speed's Indian trilogy, a three-book journey that will cover the final years of the Mogul Empire and the rise of the Marathis under the highwayman Shivaji. It will leave you breathlessly awaiting his next novel.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312325487
• ISBN13: 9780312325480
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.4" x 1.3" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Lush and Exotic

A sensational debut, an incredibly well told story by a master story teller. For a first novel, this is simply outstanding and deserves high acclaim. I read this book in 24 hours. The lush and exotic scenery is very evocative of India in the 1600s and I truly felt I was there in the scene and not watching from the sidelines. The authors ability to create an atmosphere so real that the reader is literally able to hear the sounds of trumpeting elephants, the jingling bells worn on the feet of veiled women, to feel the wet spray of waterfalls and raging rapids, shows pure talent and promise of an author to be watched and remembered as one of the great historical novelists to come. The story is engaging, riveting, and the reader gets a firsthand account education of the place and time. Everything that one needs in a good book is here. Romance, action, adventure, culture and history, murder, good dialogue, beautiful scenery, what a great epic movie it would make. In fact, recently I had just watched the DVD of Fritz Lang's India epic that was filmed in the 50's and this book was a good match for the setting and time. Lots of plots and twists and turns, believable characters, and the future of two more books to come in the trilogy turned this book into a hit for me. I love historical fiction and am very selective about authors and good writing styles, I hope to see this novel hit the best seller list. I eagerly await the next installment.

Adventure, romance, intrigue and exotic sex

A friend told me that if I liked Shogun, I'd like The Temple Dancer. My friend was right: The Temple Dancer is a classic: A historical novel that kept me turning pages by the bedlamp long after I should have gone to sleep. This story is epic in scale: wide, rambling, and dense with plot driven by richly drawn characters who grow more complex with each chapter. Maya, the Temple Dancer, is a wonderful mix of innocence and eroticism, a slave being used as a pawn in a business deal between a fading Portuguese trading house and the new Sultan of Bijapur. She's paired with Lucinda, a flightly Portuguese heiress, and Slipper - an unctuous, duplicitous eunuch -traveling by elephant through central India in 1657, a time of turmoil and treachery. Of course, handsome guards join the caravan, and of course there are bandits, and poison, and langourous evenings at lake palaces, and passionate meetings in jasmine-scented gardens under the moonlight, and elephants, and daring escapes, etc., etc. Like the jacket quotes say: it's an ocean of a story...Errol Flynn meets Bollywood. Unlike most modern historicals, which frankly are pretty thin gruel, this book delivers adventure on an epic scale -- great passions driving headlong against each other, and a young, innocent woman caught in the middle. The author's descriptions were so vivid, with such sensory impact I became lost in his depiction of that fascinating time and place. All in all, pretty cool. I've already lent this book out, and I can scarcely wait to get it back so I can re-read some of my favorite parts (the elephant's death, in particular).

Exotic, exciting, enticing pageturner

What a story! The beach melted away as I was transported to 17th century India on the carpet of this extravagant story. Speed is quite a story teller--the section about the fall of the elephant still has my head spinning--and is the perfect antidote for the end of summer doldrums. One warning, Speed takes a few dozen pages to get warmed up, set the stage, introduce the characters, but then his tale takes off like a rocket. Interlaced with this intricate story is a lot of historical and cultural detail, which Speed feeds you like a sweet ice between courses--tastes great, complements the next dish, and makes you feel virtuous because it doesn't have any fat. A truly enjoyable read!