Is any­one else drool­ing over this cover? Because it is gor­geous. Even though I have an ARC, kindly pro­vided by Tem­plar, I’m very tempted to buy the pub­lished book sim­ply so I can have that cover on my book shelf!

Madras, 1910: Posey Swift and Tilly Sweet­rick are caught up in a scan­dal that will change their lives for­ever. Singing and danc­ing across a hun­dred stages as mem­bers of a troupe of Aus­tralian child per­form­ers, they travel by steam train into the heart of India. But as one dis­as­ter fol­lows another, money runs short and tem­pers fray. What must the girls do to pro­tect them­selves, and how many lives will be ruined if they try to break free?

If anyone’s look­ing for some­thing a bit dif­fer­ent in his­tor­i­cal YA, or sim­ply YA in gen­eral, I would urge you to pick up India Dark. I’m a big fan of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion and even more so when it’s inspired or based on real char­ac­ters or a real event, and par­tic­u­larly if it’s one based on events that aren’t as well known.

India Dark is kind of like a mix­ture of every­thing I enjoy read­ing, a book for both younger and older read­ers, engag­ing but flawed char­ac­ters, some insight into dif­fer­ent cul­tures, a the­atri­cal back­ground, his­tor­i­cal set­ting and a glimpse into a very dif­fer­ent way of life. The story is based on a real the­atre troupe from the 1880′s, Pollard’s Lil­liput­ian Opera Com­pany, which closed in 1910 when the chil­dren walked out and refused to tour with their man­ager any more.

It’s a sur­pris­ingly dark tale that touches on child abuse, bul­ly­ing, lies and pos­si­ble sex­ual assault. Since we see a lot of this through the eyes of Posey, a naive, young girl, new to the the­atre troupe, noth­ing is explicit. Indeed, Posey doesn’t quite under­stand or catch many of the things going on around her, but it is cer­tainly there, a qui­etly sin­is­ter under­tone that builds through­out the book.

One of the things I liked most about India Dark was how the that events are told through the eyes of two very dif­fer­ent nar­ra­tors. Posey sees every­thing through rose tinted glasses and is des­per­ate for every­one to be one big happy fam­ily. Tilly is older, almost cyn­i­cal and at times quite self­ish. She becomes deter­mined to get escape the troupe and pun­ish Arthur Per­ci­val, who she blames (rightly or wrongly), for ruined her chances of tour­ing Amer­ica. Each girl views the same events in strik­ingly dif­fer­ent ways. What was espe­cially inter­est­ing was how they saw each other. Tilly sees Posey not as a sweet, kind hearted girl, but as some­one who is well aware of her inno­cent apparel and who can actu­ally be quite manip­u­la­tive and sly. Both are unre­li­able nar­ra­tors. As is the case of the orig­i­nal Lil­liputians, we’re never cer­tain who is telling the truth and who has exag­ger­at­ing or twisted events to suit their own pur­pose. I actu­ally pre­ferred Tilly as the novel pro­gressed, but I did feel for Posey. Loss of inno­cence is an impor­tant theme that Mur­ray explores in India Dark and Posey is just one of sev­eral Lilliputian’s who are forced to grow up far too quickly.

There are many char­ac­ters in India Dark but almost all of them felt like real peo­ple, as if their own sto­ries were tak­ing place just out of sight, of the page, and sev­eral have their own story arc weav­ing in and out of the main plot. I was fas­ci­nated when I dis­cov­ered that each char­ac­ter was inspired by, or based on, a real mem­ber of Pollard’s Opera Com­pany. If any char­ac­ter stole my heart it was Char­lie. One of the younger boys, he mostly keeps to him­self and stays out of the many petty squab­bles, dra­mas and upsets that break out among the Lil­liputians – par­tic­u­larly among the girls. He wants to be a magi­cian, and unlike the oth­ers, takes advan­tage of the troupe being diverted through India to make new friends, learn their cus­toms and chase his own dreams. His friend­ship and ten­ta­tive rela­tion­ship with Posey is touch­ing and formed some of my very favourite scenes of the novel.

I felt Mur­ray cap­tured the atmos­phere of the time and the set­ting extremely well. I loved the brief glimpses into the British Empire, the children’s (and their guardian’s) under­stand­ing and atti­tude towards East­ern peo­ple and East­ern cul­tures and vice-versa. The lack of oppor­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren from poor fam­i­lies in the early 19th cen­tury, the con­straints and treat­ment of young women of the time, the sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of the Lil­liputians in the­atre troupes, the out­break of cholera and the grow­ing appre­ci­a­tion and fol­low­ing for magi­cians and spir­i­tu­al­ism through­out that period. These were only brushed upon, but it was these lit­tle details that really made India Dark for me.

India Dark does loose momen­tum at times. I actu­ally found the cli­max of the story, when the chil­dren walk out on the the­atre troupe and the fol­low­ing chap­ters as they await the trial, was the least inter­est­ing part of the whole book. The epi­logue gives us a sad, bit­ter­sweet glance into the Lilliputian’s lives as adults, the friend­ships that have sur­vived over the years, and the ones that haven’t. There is also a Vic­to­rian styled pro­gram at the begin­ning of the book which is very help­ful for keep­ing track of all the sec­ondary char­ac­ters and their var­i­ous ages. All I want now is a com­pan­ion book with the col­lec­tion of pho­tographs and doc­u­ments that Mur­ray used to bring India Dark to life…

The India Dark Blog Tour is stop­ping by here on the 12th Jan­u­ary so check back for an inter­view with the author.

*Many thanks to Tem­plar for send­ing an ARC for review*