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Two audacious women; one remarkable man …
When Raffles sets sail from the cold, damp confines of Georgian London to make his name and fortune in the tropics, he takes with him his new wife, Olivia, a raffish beauty with a scandalous past. She infatuates both his closest friend, a poet, and one of his bitterest rivals, a soldier. Raffles sees what is going on, but he turns a blind eye – or so hopes Olivia.
After Olivia’s death, and back on leave in London, Raffles, a man once again in need of a wife, makes a practical marriage. Sophia, no beauty, but curious and intelligent, embraces the opportunity of an exciting life abroad. Marriage brings her great joy but also great sadness. Her life with Raffles becomes a catalogue of loss: of their children, of their possessions, of their savings.
And all the while, Raffles, driven and talented, manoeuvres at the centre of global networks of power, trade, politics and diplomacy. His scheming culminates, to his eventual glory, with the founding of a new trading post: Singapore.
Transport yourself from London to equatorial Penang, Malacca, Java, Sumatra, and Singapore.
About the author
Rosie Milne is a freelance writer and author of How To Change Your Life and Holding the Baby (Pan Macmillan). Milne writes for Asian Books Blog, The Daily Telegraph and Asian Review of Books, and divides her time between London and Singapore.
Paperback 9789814625272
Ebook 9789814625289
Extent 432pp
Category Fiction / Historical
