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The Temple Dancer: A Novel of India | 
 enlarge | Author: John Speed
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $5.99
You Save: $18.96 (76%)
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 34082
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B0017I0GRQ
Publication Date: August 22, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
India, 1657.
When Maya, a graceful, young temple dancer with a mysterious past, is sold into slavery, she enters a world of intrigue, violence, and forbidden love. Bought by a Portuguese trader and sold as a concubine to the dissolute vizier of Bijapur, she embarks on a treacherous journey.
In a caravan led by the dangerous settlement man Da Gama, she travels by elephant on the hostile road to Bijapur, joined by Geraldo, a Portuguese adventurer, and Pathan, a handsome prince who carries a dark secret. Together with Lucinda, a beautiful, spoiled young Goan heiress, and the manipulative eunuch Slipper, they climb the windswept mountain road through the Western Ghats.
When their caravan is attacked by bandits, the travelers’ lives are turned upside down. In the aftermath, Maya and Lucinda suddenly find themselves stranded in a strange, exotic world, a world filled with passion, romance, and deception, pure love and lurking evil, where nothing is as it seems and the two women are faced with great temptation as well as heart-wrenching decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
Greed, politics, commitment, courage, love, and intolerance mesh to form a vibrant Indian tapestry. With spectacular settings, unforgettable characters, fierce sensuality, and intense scholarship, this adventure-packed novel marks the debut of an exciting new storyteller.
The Temple Dancer is the first volume of John Speed’s Indian trilogy, a three-book journey that will cover the final years of the Mogul Empire and the rise of the Marathis under the highwayman Shivaji. It will leave you breathlessly awaiting his next novel.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Couldn't Put it Down February 10, 2007
BakingandBooks.com (CT)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I never thought I would say this but John Speed now rivals Philippa Gregory as one of my favorite authors of historical fiction. Set in India in the year 1657, "The Temple Dancer" is a riveting tale of two women: Lucinda Desana, a beautiful Goan heiress; and Maya, a devadasi (temple dancer) who is bought by Lucinda's family and sold as a concubine. They meet in Goa and travel through the Western Ghats by elephant, each heading towards a fate that has changed by the time their journey has ended. Escorted by a dangerous man with a reputation for violence, a conniving eunuch, a cold-hearted businessman and a mysterious prince, their story is filled with intrigue, adventure, sensuality and forbidden love. Indeed, I lost many hours of sleep because I simply had to find out what Speed's exotic collection of characters were going to do next. His immense knowledge of Indian history and culture transforms them into vibrant people who inhabit an unforgettable world. The back cover of this book says that Speed has studied Indian history, art and religion for over thirty-years and I believe it. I can hardly wait for the next two books in this planned trilogy.
Adventure, romance, intrigue and exotic sex September 6, 2006
Nemo Noman (Rock Hill, SC USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
A friend told me that if I liked Shogun, I'd like The Temple Dancer.
My friend was right: The Temple Dancer is a classic: A historical novel that kept me turning pages by the bedlamp long after I should have gone to sleep.
This story is epic in scale: wide, rambling, and dense with plot driven by richly drawn characters who grow more complex with each chapter.
Maya, the Temple Dancer, is a wonderful mix of innocence and eroticism, a slave being used as a pawn in a business deal between a fading Portuguese trading house and the new Sultan of Bijapur. She's paired with Lucinda, a flightly Portuguese heiress, and Slipper - an unctuous, duplicitous eunuch -traveling by elephant through central India in 1657, a time of turmoil and treachery.
Of course, handsome guards join the caravan, and of course there are bandits, and poison, and langourous evenings at lake palaces, and passionate meetings in jasmine-scented gardens under the moonlight, and elephants, and daring escapes, etc., etc.
Like the jacket quotes say: it's an ocean of a story...Errol Flynn meets Bollywood.
Unlike most modern historicals, which frankly are pretty thin gruel, this book delivers adventure on an epic scale -- great passions driving headlong against each other, and a young, innocent woman caught in the middle.
The author's descriptions were so vivid, with such sensory impact I became lost in his depiction of that fascinating time and place.
All in all, pretty cool.
I've already lent this book out, and I can scarcely wait to get it back so I can re-read some of my favorite parts (the elephant's death, in particular).
Genius! September 30, 2006
rblum (myrtle beach, sc)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Genius! Pure Genius.
John Speed's The Temple Dancer is not only a modern-day page turner, but it is also a literary work in the classical sense.
Speed's novel is vivid and cinematic in scope. His vibrant descriptions of India during the 1600s bring this historical time and place to life. He transports the reader to a far off past civilization, and we fly there naturally, as though we have just stepped off a jumbo jet and landed in an exotic culture.
Although Speed is a historian, his real brilliance lies in magically creating characters that pop off the page. He does his magic through clever, witty dialog, and through an amazing ability to capture and express subtle nonverbal communication. This is Speed's genius. Like Tolstoy, Speed reveals to us his characters' hidden subconscious thoughts and feelings. Speed's vivid descriptions of the nonverbal - facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures- reveal his characters' inner life, illuminating the reader with elevated awareness. The result is the infusion of life into ink, the birth of complex characters in the reader's mind. The effect is psychedelic.
The plot keeps one on the edge of one's seat, with many twists and turns that propel one to turn the pages. But these twists of fate are not arbitrary or forced. Rather, Speed invokes the Indian law of karma - fate is determined by character - to eventually dole out justice, making for a most natural and satisfying conclusion.
 Splendid read February 6, 2007
Nicolette Bot (USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I read this book in three days straight, could not concentrate on anything else. Especially since I am born Dutch, grew up in Portugal and lived in Goa for a while, this is the book that I've been waiting for all my life. Can barely wait for the follow up. Adventure, History, passion, love and murder, what else does a reader want. Bravo!, Nicolette
Crowd-pleasing beauty...with serious muscle. August 30, 2006
Annika Faulk
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Usually, when faced with a work of fiction, there's a certain point, somewhere in the middle, that you can point to and say, "Now THIS is where the plot really starts to thicken." Even a great page-turner like the Da Vinci Code will have a storyline that becomes quite elaborate and developed within the first 150 pages and fizzles out at the end.
In the case of The Temple Dancer, the plot thickens on page 5, doubles in on itself by page 50, and develops into a superlatively loopy conundrum by the middle of the book. If the plot were any thicker, the book would certainly implode, which would be a shame because nobody would get to read it then.
Mr. Speed keeps the whole thing chugging along by killing off characters unexpectedly, thus creating opportunities to insert yet more action. This is exactly the sort of kinetic artistry that defines blockbuster adventure stories, and the author is clearly a master at his craft. With a little effort spent on keeping the interlocking story lines straight (the map and list of characters help), the reader can remain engaged until the very last page. Which, as it happens, contains an astonishing plot twist.
I am eagerly awaiting the second volume of this trilogy, to find out what happens next.
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