Linda Holeman The Moonlit Cage

The Moonlit Cage

Linda Holeman

Crown Three Rivers, Mar 2007, $14.95

ISBN: 0307346498

In 1845 Afghanistan, Darya dreams of freedom to do whatever she wants including reading the Qur'an in public and visit some of the locations she has heard about mostly from her grandmother. However, Darya knows that is a fantasy because a female must obey males. Over the next decades her father is outraged by her behavior as he considers her wicked, but it is his second wife Suluma who takes action by cursing her and arranging for her father to sell her to the abusive son of a nomadic tribe chief.

Desperate to escape her even tighter bonds, Darya flees. English expatriate David Ingram escorts her to Bombay where he leaves her as he continues on the England. However, Darya misses the kind Ingram, who she loves. She arranges to travel to London escorted by Osric Bull, who has other plans for the exotic beauty.

The Asian chapters are superb insightful look at the mid-nineteenth century even filtered through the heroine's perspective. The storyline remains strong when Darya travels with Bull, but loses some of the uniqueness that will stun the audience as the Afghan tribal culture insures that the role of women is to pleasure men. When she reaches 1850s London, Darya anticipates freedom only to find a single female still has almost no rights as high society assumes they are there to ease a man's burden. Her revelation keeps her fresh as THE MOONLIT CAGE is a fabulous historical tale that fans will appreciate.