The Sandlewood Tree by Elle Newmark

My favorite book of all is by this author and she did not disappoint with this story.  She combines storytelling with history in such a way that I don't even realize I'm learning about actual historical events and people.

This book is the beautifully told story, two stories in fact, one about two women living in India in the mid 1800's and the second is about a small family living in India in the mid 1900's.

The first story is one of an American family that comes to India in the 1900's for work.  This is in the time of Ghandi and much unrest in India.  In the country where they live it is relatively peaceful and often dull and lonely for the young housewife with her young son, Billy.  The husband and wife were very much in love when they married but after the husband went to war in WWII he came back a shell of his former self.  He was angry and suffered great nightmares but refused to share his sorrows with his wife.  In an attempt to clean away the pain, the young wife comes across letters from two young women to each other in the 1800's.  They had once lived in the same house that the young couple occupy today.
The young wife is intrigued by the young women's lives and begins a search to uncover their complete  stories.

During the search for information in the 1800's household, the young 1900's wife deals with a scare that will change her life when the countries unrest comes too close to her own family.  She also discovers the truth about what haunts her husband from the war.  I thought I knew a lot about the injustice of WWII but I was shocked to learn that the cruelty and ignorance stretched beyond the German cruelties.  Americans committed much sin also.  Germans were shot just for wearing the uniform after American and other soldiers had witnessed much death.  Their grief and anger caused some of them to commit further injustices and that is very sad indeed.  I feel we should discuss all of history in our schools, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I feel misled by not getting more information of our own soldiers atrocities.

The two women from the 1800's live a life unknown by most women of their time.  They are inspired by strong female authors to live a life of joy instead of the life chosen by their mothers, one of arranged marriages and fulfilling duties to all but oneself.  One of the women is gay which of course is not accepted in that time and the other woman falls in love with an Indian, also not accepted at the time.  To make matters worse the Indian is married, a loveless arranged marriage, and Felicity becomes pregnant complicating things even more.

India in the mid 1800's was a very restless place with the Seapoy rebellion, India's first war of independence happening.  So much information was packed into this book about life, traditions and events in India's history, but it was so beautifully done I hardly realized that I was learning.  Did you know that in some cultures the ashes of the dead are put into food?  I had heard stories about it but I never the actual context of the event.

Loved, loved this story.  Ms. Newmark in my opinion has a natural gift of storytelling and an obvious background in history.  Please write more for me to read.  You are worth all the wait.