Synopsis
The greatest tragedy of Queen Victoria’s reign...
...was a personal experience for Henry Booth. His mother died when more than
one-hundred women and children were hacked to pieces with meat cleavers by the
rebel forces of the Great Indian Mutiny. This event, which transformed an
empire, left deep scars in Henry’s character.
Years after the slaughter, Henry receives his mother’s
journal from India and the young Oxford student finds himself suddenly
entangled in his mother’s past, a past he never suspected, a past which
threatens his own life in the present.
While Henry tries to elude the dangers that confront him,
he comes to know his mother, not through the idealized memories of a seven year
old child, the age when he last saw her, but through her journal. The journal
teaches Henry that his Victorian assumptions about the nature of women are
utterly false. What he learns from his mother’s private thoughts allows him to
give up the myth of male supremacy for a passionate relationship with a young
Indian woman who has been trained as a dancer, musician, poet and courtesan.
Shadows of Empire is a love story and mystery that takes
place in the exotic settings of Lucknow, northern India, and Victorian London.
In addition to the drama of two interwoven cultures, and two story lines of
past and present, the reader will also encounter the remarkable subculture of
the Lucknow courtesans, highly skilled artists who were leaders of
their society and, unlike nearly all other women on the subcontinent, lived
their lives without male domination.
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Author Bio
Alan began writing at age six by plotting with his father on
Superman, Batman and other action hero stories for DC Publications in New
York. His other writing includes commercial films, brochures and
advertisements. Alan is also a photographer, using twenty-first century
technology to capture macro images in nature. His work is inspired by his
mother, Marjorie McKee’s, abstract expressionist painting. His work is in
private collections globally.
Alan lives with his family in Toronto but spends time at his
second home in Nova Scotia. His special interests are British history and
nineteenth century literature. He has been particularly inspired by two great
British historians, E.P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm.
Oxford, England remains a soft spot as does the writing of Wilkie
Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
His other books are The Iron Beast and The Minotaur’s Children.
The Minotaur’s Children details the trade in children and young girls between
London and the brothels on the continent. It is against this backdrop that the
story is told.
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Shadows of Empire Excerpts
From
the Foreword
More than any other place I have ever
seen, Lucknow with its golden minarets and gleaming stuccoed buildings,
polished to look like the whitest marble, brought the Arabian Nights to life.
Lucknow was a place of dreams made real. Courtyards with magical buildings and
luxuriant lawns where peacocks wandered, uttering their piercing cries, were
reminiscent of Persian paintings and ceramics. Deer roamed in the parks which
lay around the Nawab’s palaces, and even the bungalows of the East India
Company where we lived stood near gardens and fruit trees that would have been
envied by the builders of Versailles. The scent of exotic blossoms was
everywhere and even stole into the little gothic church the Company had built
for us near the Residency.
Action sequence
“Those porters don’t look any too
strong,” Henry remarked. “I think I’ll give a hand. I’ll take one end and you
take the other, Harry.”
“Right,” the other man said as they got
out of the carriage and approached the porters. Both of the young men had
forgotten the arguing Indian jarveys. In the crowded street, hey didn’t realize
that as they approached the trunk, three of the Indians were walking right
behind them, following on their heels.
“Mother,” Henry called out, “We’ll take
it from here. Just put it down,” he said to the porters.
As the trunk touched the ground, the
three Indian drivers sprang forward. Henry seized one end of the trunk and
Harry the other.
“What the devil?” Henry exclaimed as
the three men tried to seize the trunk from them. “They’re Thugs,” Henry called
out.
One of the Indians drew a wicked
looking curved knife. Keeping the trunk between himself and the man with a
knife, Henry swung the heavy trunk with Harry and managed to slam it into their
assailant. Just as he went down, Henry felt someone leap on his back. In order
to throw him, Henry had to put down his end of the trunk.
“Harry,” he called, “whatever happens
don’t let go your end.” Then, he attended to the business of throwing the man
on his back to the ground. As the man began to be dislodged, he tried to slip a
white scarf around Henry’s neck, and failed. Henry threw him hard and when the
man tried to get up from the street, Henry finished him with a neat right
cross. He then looked around just in time to see two other men dragging Harry
and the chest toward one of their waiting carriages.
“Hold on, Harry. I’m coming,” and he
sprinted across the few yards between himself and the men.
Love scene
“My poor, dear, Henry,” she said as she
reached down and touched his face gently. “This is all very hard for you, is it
not?” Her gesture and words were very intimate, something Mary or Amelia might
say and do.
“It is, Umrao. You cannot know. I chaff
at this inactivity, but I don’t know what to do.”
“But it is only natural, Henry. Until
now, everything, in your life has been smooth. Now, you feel you have lost
everything. Yes?” She moved close to him and hugged his head to her side as one
might with a child.
“You are very kind, Umrao.”
“It is easy to be kind to you, Henry.
I, too, am struggling to keep my balance in this strange land.”
He felt her lips brush his. It was done
so gently, so artlessly, it might have been a kiss from a child. Henry felt at
a complete loss to know what to do. He wanted very much to take the exotic
young woman in his arms, but he did not want to frighten her. He also feared to
discover the strength of his own feelings if he released them. The whole
situation added to his sense of having lost everything familiar. He was at sea.
He didn’t know what the boundaries would be with Umrao, Or if there would be
any boundaries. It was the direct opposite to his relationship with Mary, where
the Suttons had laid down definite rules for behaviour. And, regardless of his
powerful attraction to Umrao, it would be a betrayal of Mary to do anything.
So, he did nothing.
