Companions of Paradise

February 12, 2007
The final installment of Thalassa's Paradise Trilogy (following A Singular Hostage
and A Beggar at the Gate
) finds Mariana Givens living within the confines of the British cantonment at Kabul in 1841, on the eve of the first Afghan war. An assassination attempt in Lahore thwarted by her husband, Hassan Ali Khan (son of a Sufi sheikh), has forced Mariana to leave Lahore, abandoning Hassan (and her stepson, Saboor). Mariana lives miserably in an English microsociety that doesn't recognize her marriage, full of dinner parties and eager suitors. Hassan, meanwhile, is recovering slowly from wounds, and his family is second-guessing Mariana's intentions. As tension escalates between the British (who have deposed the Afghan king, Amir Dost Muhammad, and installed a more friendly rival, Shah Shuja) and the Afghans (who are preparing to attack the British army and its 10,000 "camp followers"), Mariana faces dangerous choices. As in the other books, Ali does a highly credible job creating the clannish atmospheres of the British and Sufi subcultures, and makes the strictures that Mariana and Hassan face (and those of their servants) palpable. The detail she offers (including mystic writings from a variety of traditions) is nicely wedded to the plot, which moves with brisk and engaging efficiency.

March 1, 2007
This final volume of Ali's colonial India trilogy (following "A Singular Hostage" and "A Beggar at the Gate") takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Mariana Givens and her fellow Brits are living in a military camp. Tensions between the Afghanis and the British are on the rise, but the British feel that their military might and modern weaponry are enough to crush the Afghan rebels. Mariana's marriage to Hassan Ali Khan makes her an outcast, since Englishwomen aren't expected to interact with the "natives." The two are separated and may divorce; the status of their marriage drives much of the plot. Mariana vacillates between hoping they'll stay married so that she can continue to learn from Hassan's aunt, a charismatic Muslim mystic, and hoping for divorce so that she can take up with former flame Harry Fitzgerald and lead a traditional life. As the situation in Kabul deteriorates and becomes violent, Mariana once again steps up to help protect the people she has grown to love. Despite the historical context, the clash between Christianity and Islam seems contemporary and relevant given current world events. Recommended for popular and historical fiction collections.Nanette Donohue, Champaign P.L., IL

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
Adult/High School-This is the concluding volume in Ali's trilogy about Victorian India and Afghanistan during the 1840s, and for full enjoyment and understanding, the books should be read in order. In "A Singular Hostage" (2002) and "A Beggar at the Gate" (2004, both Bantam), Mariana Givens goes to India in search of a husband, presumably among the British officers of the Raj, but marries an Indian man. Unsure of what to do in these unsettled times, she leaves her husband and returns to the British enclave. In this book, the Afghan War is beginning, and Mariana is caught in a life-or-death journey through a country at war and struggling to decide where she belongs. Ali portrays the clash of power and politics of two rigid cultures, and has re-created a lush and exotic place that exists side by side with poverty and cruelty. This final book concludes the sprawling story of an epic time in Middle Eastern history and is filled with vividly drawn characters who give the history a human face."Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2007
Readers first met the brave Englishwoman Mariana Givens in Ali's exciting debut novel, " A Singular Hostage" (2002), and Ali continued Mariana's incredible adventures in " A Beggar at the Gate "(2004). The final book of the Paradise trilogy concludes Mariana's saga. It's 1841, and Mariana is at the British cantonment in Kabul. The pressure is on to break all ties with Hassan Ali Khan, her Muslim Indian husband (from whom she's been separated), and marry a British officer as one of her own. Mariana can't make up her mind. Does Hassan still consider their marriage valid? Does he still love her? To help with her decision, she goes to a mystic, a Sufi seer. But things are never easy in nineteenth-century Afghanistan. Afghan forces have the British cantonment under siege, and Mariana is put in a terrible position. With its incredible detail, historical accuracy, strong sense of place, Sufi mysticism, and fearless heroine who risks her life to do the right thing, this is a perfect ending to an excellent trilogy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)