Why a Booktrail?
1920s: A women will do whatever it can to find her missing son even in the unpredictable landscape of Tibet and Nepal
The Himalayan Summer
What you need to know before your trail
Ellie Jeffreys arrives in Darjeeling with her British husband, en route to Kathmandu. They have ten-month-old, golden-haired twins, and despite appearing to be a happy family, Ellie’s relationship with the overbearing, philandering Francis is disintegrating.
At a cocktail party, Ellie meets Hugh Douglas, a maverick explorer and botanist. Despite the rumours surrounding Hugh,Ellie is drawn to him. A year later, Nepal is devastated by a catastrophic earthquake and in a falling building, Ellie is forced to make an instant, and terrible, decision: she has time to save only one of her children. When she returns for her son’s body the next day, it has gone. Ellie knows he cannot have disappeared; someone, somewhere has her child, and it is to Hugh that she turns for help.
Travel Guide
San Francisco
The novel starts with the Great Earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco – the tragedy, confusion and human suffering but also endurance are captured here and contrasted with what happens later on in the story.
The Himalayas
The serenity of the Himalayas is apparent as soon as the party travels from Darjeeling and the many villages along the way to get to the sacred site and the famous mountains. The world here, in India with the British Raj and the country’s independence are portrayed with passion and angst. Later on, the Chinese domination of Tibet and the opening of Nepal becomes a major setting both geographically and politically. The landscape is here is bumpy and unpredictable much like the trek from Darjeeling to the Himalayas.
The author knows the landscape well having lived in Kathmandu for two years in the early 1990s whilst working on an aid programme to Nepal. She says that there is “nothing more pleasing to the senses as walking along quiet trials in spring when the yellow flowers of the mustard crop gild the emerald green Kathmandu Valley under a cloudless, cobalt sky.”
Sikkim in India was established as a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the 1840s, the city became capital of an independent monarchy after British rule ended, (it joined India in 1975). Today, it remains a Tibetan Buddhist center and a base for hikers organizing permits and transport for treks through Sikkim’s Himalayan mountain ranges
Nepal
The Nepal earthquake in the book which shows the devastation of a beautiful country and its people occurred in April 2015. After shocks also devastated what was left of the fascinating country. Over 9000 people were killed and as one of the poorest countries in the world, Nepal suffered in every sense of the word. It is located in one of the most unstable – geographically speaking – areas in the world.
Tibet
Much of the inspiration for the novel and the story came from Margaret D Williamson’s Memoirs of a Political Officer’s Wife in Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan as the author mentions in her author’s note. She explains that this is a fascinating insight into the life and times of a world that is now lost – due to the passing of time but also because of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Margaret and her husband Derrick did much of the trek outlined in the book.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This was a really evocative and insightful read into the lifestyle of British colonialists, Tibet and a region of the world that remains to many as it ever did. The journey to Nepal and Tibet is fraught with danger and evocative descriptions of what a journey must have been like. Imagine doing this as an American woman, in a world that taught women what they should and shouldn’t do. The husband controls her and she travels far and wide to do his bidding. When tragedy strikes however, you realise who the stronger person is.
The landscape and backstory to this region is very much part of the story – mysterious and a region where not many people have been to and back then it was practically mythical! To venture here and then to lose a child, then the search for that child was an epic story, full of emotion and suspense. How far would you go to find your child? Across mountains in Tibet?
It was a very visual read and I was captivated by the dust and heat of the pages, and I swear I could see the views as the novel peaked. A journey into the unknown and I feel I’ve discovered something new about this mysterious region now.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Himalayan Summer
Author/Guide: Louise Brown Destination:West Bengal, Nepal, Kathmandu, The Himalayas, Tibet Departure Time: 1920s
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