Kris Rothstein reviews Sophie, in Shadow in the current issue of CM Magazine from the Manitoba Library Association.
" For
the most part Eileen Kernaghan avoids the tendencies of many authors writing
about Victorian and Edwardian India. She does not overly exoticize the
landscape or its people. She does an excellent job of creating this milieu and
seeing it through the eyes of a particular girl from a particular time, rather
than a current perspective. Sophie’s friendships with Will, a young World War I
soldier, and Darius, a young Oxford-educated Indian scientist, are both very
realistic and convey much about relations of the time between men and women and
between English and Indians. The tension between the straight-laced officials
and Sophie’s more unconventional adoptive family shows the intricacies of the
politics of British rule in India. Ultimately, Sophie, In Shadow ends up
being a fantastic history lesson without ever really being obvious about it."
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