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Summary
Summary
It has been twelve years since a dark, murderous figure stalked the alleys and courts of Whitechapel. And yet, in the summer of 1900, East London is still poor, still brutal, still a shadow city to its western twin. Among the reformers is an idealistic young woman named India Selwyn-Jones, recently graduated from medical school. With the help of her influential fiance--Freddie Lytton, an up-and-coming Liberal MP--she works to shut down the area's opium dens that destroy both body and soul. Her selfless activities better her patients' lives and bring her immense gratification, but unfortunately, they also bring her into direct conflict with East London's ruling crime lord--Sid Malone.
India is not good for business and at first, Malone wants her out. But against all odds, India and Sid fall in love. Different in nearly every way, they share one thing in common--they're both wounded souls. Their love is impossible and they know it, yet they cling to it desperately. Lytton, India's fiance, will stop at nothing to marry India and gain her family's fortune.
Fractious criminal underlings and rivals conspire against Sid. When Sid is finally betrayed by one of his own, he must flee London to save his life. Mistakenly thinking him dead, India, pregnant and desperate, marries Freddie to provide a father for hers and Sid's child. India and Sid must each make a terrible sacrifice--a sacrifice that will change them both forever. One that will lead them to other lives, and other places...and perhaps--one distant, bittersweet day--back to each other.
Author Notes
Jennifer Donnelly was born in Port Chester, New York in 1963. She majored in English literature and European history at the University of Rochester. Her books for adults include The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and The Wild Rose. She is also the author of a picture book for children entitled Humble Pie and several young adult novels including Revolution and These Shallow Graves. A Northern Light was awarded Britain's Carnegie Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction, and a Michael L. Printz Honor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In late Victorian London, idealistic new medical school graduate India Selwyn Jones goes to work at a clinic in the city's poorest neighborhood, much to the dismay of her aristocratic mother and ambitious fiance, political up-and-comer Freddie Lytton. The squalor is a bit much for India, but she manages to keep her emotions under control until she meets underworld crime boss Sid Malone. Sid begins as India's nemesis, becomes her patient and ends up something much more than that. What India doesn't know is that Sid is the brother of tea heiress Fiona Bristow, wife of self-made, highly principled businessman Joseph Bristow. What Sid doesn't know is that India's fiance is as ruthless as Sid's most ruthless henchman, willing to commit theft, betrayal and even murder to launch his career, force India out of hers and bring down Sid in the process. In typical epic style, Donnelly (The Tea Rose) alternates India's story with Sid's, Freddie's, Joseph's and Fiona's, leading the reader through turn-of-the-century England from the Houses of Parliament to ale houses and whore houses, and from London to Africa and beyond. It's all familiar stuff, but Donnelly's passion and energy will keep readers turning the many pages, rooting for India and the gruff underworld boss she loves. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Where's Jack the Ripper when you need him? India Jones--her name an echo, intentional or not, of the Harrison Ford film character--is spirited, moneyed, smart, high-toned, tough and diligent. She lacks only the ability to "smell a copper a mile away," a skill that would help her fit right in with her patients in Whitechapel, London's dingiest, grimiest, Cockneyest district, where she has set up a medical practice. Jack London wrote about the place in People of the Abyss, a book contemporaneous with the time at which Donnelly's far chunkier tome takes place. Like Donnelly's The Tea Rose (2002), this work features a heroine who cuts a fine figure in the world but who is less than complete without a man--preferably a dangerous sort, it seems, rather than a fellow do-gooder--by her side. India fills the bill with Sid Malone, a cruel-hearted and cruelly handsome gangster who is definitely not for the faint of heart. (Come the movie, Ian McShane is just the type for the part.) Both naturally resist the temptations of the other. Eventually, hormones trump sense; as Donnelly explains, "He stood, as if to go, then instead he bent to her, took her face in his hands, parted her lips with his tongue, and kissed her deeply." Once parted, those lips stay parted, even when Sid gets himself in trouble with the coppers. When he's released on his own recognizance, Sid arms himself with a pseudonym and goes off in search of India, who has transferred herself to Kenya to do good in coffee country. Seems she's got something that's his. Meanwhile, she's looking for something that's hers, too, but is stymied by the evil politician Freddie Lytton, who, come to think of it, has his Jack the Ripper qualities. Can love prevail over money? Can love outlast this too-long, too-average narrative? Only India's shadow knows. Horatio Alger meets a bodice-ripper meets Hemingway, with Dickensian dashes for good measure. Still, mostly a bodice-ripper, and a middling one at that. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Characters from Donnelly's The Tea Rose (2002) reappear as supporting actors in this fast-paced, sometimes melodramatic but always surprising sequel. India Selwyn Jones and Sid Malone are the fiery pair at the center of this deliciously long historical romance set in late-nineteenth-century London. India graduates at the top of her medical-school class and then throws away any chance for social redemption (in her family's view) by doctoring the poor in Whitechapel. Sid Malone masterminds shady deals and violent gang wars, flexing his muscles as London's most powerful underworld crime lord. When Sid is horribly injured, the stubborn, outspoken Dr. Jones meets the pugnacious crime lord, and sparks fly. Love blooms. Improbable, perhaps, but the action never lets up, from back-alley beatings and gunrunning to bordellos, society drawing rooms, and the corridors of elitist government. This is a page-turner á la Wilbur Smith's Courtney novels an old-fashioned adventure and an improbable love story. Mix Gangs of New York, Romeo and Juliet, and Oliver Twist, and get a passionate tale propelled by sophisticated plotting, cleverly disguised motives, and intriguingly entangled characters.--Baker, Jen Copyright 2007 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The second book in a planned trilogy (after The Tea Rose), this story of notorious East London criminal Sid Malone (formerly Charlie Finnegan, believed dead) and crusading woman doctor India Selwyn Jones takes many melodramatic turns between their first antagonistic meeting in 1900 and their final passionate rendezvous in 1907. Fighting their desire for each other, Sid struggles to go straight, and India devotes herself to healing poor women and children. By the time India thinks to break off her engagement to Freddie, the handsome, politically ambitious schemer who only wants her family's money, it's too late-she's trapped in a loveless marriage, and Sid is on the run. Fiona and Joe, characters from the trilogy's first book, figure prominently, but this book stands on its own. The author includes interesting details related to medical practices of the time, but her main characters have contemporary attitudes, and the history goes down easy. Readers looking for a historical page-turner along the lines of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance won't be disappointed. Recommended for public libraries.-Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
