This HaBO comes from Renee, who is looking for this historical romance:
I took this book out of our public library in the mid-to-late 1970s – I think it was recently published at that time but, surprisingly, isn’t part of the collection anymore. It is historical romance set during the Indian Mutiny of 1857 (the book referred to it as the Sepoy Mutiny). The heroine is a late-teens to early 20s American missionary daughter who is trapped in Lucknow (I think) at the beginning of that siege. She escapes with the help of the hero, an American engineer (was he putting up telegraph wires?) who was planning on heading back to the western US. They save some English children and their mother, and maybe some of the Indian employees of the English family, and I think they travel in a cart trying to make it to . . . somewhere safe. The romantic conflict was that the heroine wanted to marry a dashing British officer who looked good in uniform, but during the escape/road trip our heroine falls in love with the engineer. Perhaps there are rose petals/rose oil mentioned in the book? It wasn’t a bodice-ripper – only chaste kisses.
The heroine may have had to ditch her numerous petticoats in order to escape.
For some reason I keep thinking the title is Tiger, Tiger or Burning Bright (or some variation thereof), but Google won’t bring up the book with those titles, so perhaps I was commingling Blake’s poetry with the books I was consuming at a high volume? I don’t think any tigers were part of the book, so why am I fixated on that title? I think the cover had a jungle aspect to it (lots of green leaves and maybe tiger eyes staring out – again with the tigers!) and was a hardback (so possibly a library printing with no cover).
Yikes.
Ooh, from the HABO title I was sure this was going to be Valerie Fitzgerald’s Zemindar. Alas, not even close. Hope someone comes up with the title.
Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye? This is definitely just a guess. I haven’t read it, but I know it’s a “chaste” romance/historical fiction book about the India during the time of the mutiny. And the publishing time frame is probably about right.
Fair warning, her books don’t always hold up well. She is very pro colonization.
Probably not “Shadow of the Moon” by MM Kaye since I think the hero was British, but that’s one that take place during the Sepoy Mutiny and I think it might have had lines from Milton, if not Blake. Man, it’s been a long time since I read it.
It is definitely “Tiger Burning Bright”, by Theodora Du Bois
If Janelle is correct, I picked this book up at a library book sale back in the 80s. Never got around to reading it though and no clue where it is.
Hello, I’m the requestor for this HABO (and so excited to be here!). It isn’t “Shadow of the Moon”, although both it and “Zemindar” are on my TBR (found them trying to find this book).
It looks like “Tiger Burning Bright” by Du Bois is the book, based on GoodReads. One of the libraries in our regional system has it, and as soon as I can (stupid virus) I’ll put a hold on it.
Thank you, Janelle, for recalling this book. I really appreciate it!
<tangent>
surprisingly, isn’t part of the collection anymore
I really hope this was meant satirically, because there is absolutely nothing surprising about a public library having to weed its collections on an ongoing basis. (Hence the site whose slogan is “Hoarding is not collection development”.) They simply don’t have infinite shelf space.
</tangent>
To the British colonisers it was the Sepoy Mutiny. To Indians it’s the Indian war of independence of 1857.
I am really, really, glad this is NOT a book I came across in my youthful desperation to read anything set in India.