Title: The Silk Merchant’s Daughter
Author: Dinah Jefferies
Release Date: January 1, 2016
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
****My Review****
I love historical fiction. Books that manage to transport readers to some faraway places, to some distant times are my favorite. It is equally important that those books have the power to draw you into their story and make you feel part of the events.
And this novel has the potential to do so. A reader can learn a lot of things from historical fiction books. Sometimes the information is correct. Other times we enjoy the imagination of the authors. In either case, those books offer a nice escape into some different fictional worlds.
The Silk Merchant’s Daughter by Dinah Jefferies is a fascinating, emotional, and sad story. The readers are confronted with the harsh truth about family relationships. Particularly the relationship between two sisters portrayed through their rivalry and jealousy.
The action takes us to a small place in Vietnam, French Indochina, in 1952. We follow the events from the perspective of Nicole, the daughter of a Frenchman and a Vietnamese woman, which causes her to search for her own identity. She is part of two completely different cultures but feels like she belongs to neither. All this is perfectly balanced with her search for love, and a complex relationship with her sister and father…
Her father decides to retire from business . He leaves Nicole the old silk shop in the Vietnam Quarter, while her sister receives the entire family business With this injustice, she feels like she lives in her sister’s shadow. This is because Nicole looks like her Vietnamese mother, and her sister looks like a true French, like their father.
Thus, at the age of eighteen, Nicole became the owner of an already closed and outdated store. But she does not give up. On the contrary, she accepts the inheritance and goes to live on the second floor of the silk shop in the Vietnamese quarter. Appearance is not a problem for her and she easily blends in with the environment and the population. In the meantime, she meets Mark, an American businessman, and falls in love with him.
When the rebels try to overthrow the rule of the French, Tran, a Vietnamese rebel, appears, offering her an escape from the problems. And so, this young woman will find herself between two worlds, two directions, two sides, two directions, two men, but only one true love. How to choose?
Her life takes an unexpected direction, and she does not know if it is the right one. This incredibly captivating story will reveal many secrets, passionate love, and sisterly rivalry, but also a struggle for identity and belonging.
We all know about the horrors that wars bring, hunger, running away, hiding, killing, but also fighting for one’s own life. Preserving one’s life becomes a priority and is very important during wartime. Everyone caught up in war will fight with everything they have to save their own lives and the lives of the people they care about.
In The Silk Merchant’s Daughter, Vietnam is beautifully described, but, unfortunately, also with its long-term wars. The wars in Vietnam began as far back as 1787, during the reign of Emperor Louis XVI, and lasted until 1975, when Vietnam was united under a communist regime. So this book is set in the period from 1952 to 1954 when Vietnam was a French colony and was divided into North and South Vietnam by the Geneva Convention.
Furthermore, it can be seen that the author has done detailed research. The descriptions are so detailed – the places and landscape are evocatively presented.
Dinah Jeffries with her book The Silk Merchant’s Daughter will instantly teleport you to Vietnam during those difficult years of the colonial era. As you read her descriptions, you feel like you are there. She paid particular attention to the details. The readers can enjoy rich descriptions of the surroundings. Unimportant details such as the taste and look the food or the smells addитионалѕ tantalize your senses.
Everything from the smells, the noise, the people, and their food is described in detail. And the characters are solidly built, with enough complexity to fascinate the reader. Her writing style is light and quite eloquent, easy to read and follow.
Her narrative is beautifully woven, like the silk of a story, and it proves to us that she is an extraordinary storyteller.
But I must also say that there were a few inconsistencies in the plot itself, which did not bother me too much but were certainly noticeable enough.
The Silk Merchant’s Daughter by Dinah Jefferies is a gratifying novel set in the turbulent period of Vietnam in the 1950s during the struggle for independence from France. If you are looking for a captivating tale of sisterly rivalry, gloomy secrets, and love against all the odds, then this is the perfect book for you.