What a great read!

This book took me an uncharacteristically long time to get into. It did not grab me from the beginning and yet it intrigued me enough to keep going. Then bang - it got me and I sat for hours to finish it.

There are two story lines. The first is the story of 3 women, 2 of them missionaries who set out in 1923 to convert whoever they could find in a region in the far west of China, near present-day "---stan" countries. I thoroughly disliked the woman who seemed to be a leader, who was almost a stereotypical, self-centred religious bigot. I have trouble with the whole concept of proselytizing, so I kept wishing her harm.

The second story line is present day England with a woman who finds that she has been left the contents of a flat by a woman who died and she has no idea who the woman is, let alone what their connection might be. She meets a Muslim man who helps her unravel the mystery.

How the two stories intersect takes a long time to be revealed. I think it's fully 1/2 way through the story before there are even any hints, so it's in the second 1/2 that the stories become intertwined.

I do think the title of the book is deceiving, at least it was to me. The title struck me as a book that would be light, actually frivolous - one of those that outlined a fun-filled romp through foreign lands with the heroine experiencing humorous situations. And it's not that. It is multi-layered and thoughtful.

Another reviewer described the writing as sumptuous - which is so accurate. The writing is beautiful and I found the way the author developed the story to be simply compelling.

This one will stay with me for a while.

Icky. The main narrator is stuck for 80% of the book, so there is no "cyclist" until nearly the end. So why bother putting in a map? And, surprise, everyone is gay, surprise. (S) Whatever. This book was just plain boring. Blah blah, with sudden bits of grotesqueness.

Exotic setting, unique characters and very different story line, recommended.

I'm not sure what I expected from the title, but this book wasn't entirely what I thought it would be, in some good ways and bad. The concept is an excellent one, and the way the two time strands are brought together is done well; there are themes that dance across the ages, showing that some things (alienation, love, loss) are always part of the human experience.

However, I felt I didn't enjoy the book as much as I could as the characters were not entirely fleshed out; I found it difficult to become invested in the fate of any of them, save Tayeb, perhaps.

Overall though it is a promising debut and I would like to see what else Suzanne Joinson writes.

I wish this book had been just that tiny bit better. The multiple (or even as in this case just dual) pov narrative seems to be the structure-du-jour these days, and can be effective, or it can have pitfalls. One important aspect is sustaining interest in both, or several, story-lines. This novel alternates between 1923 Kashgar and present-day London. The Kashgar sequences are riveting and extremely evocative of place and time. The London episodes are curiously uninvolving, perhaps because both the main characters in that time-line seem passive, drifting through their lives and pretty much unchanged at the end. The connection between the two story-lines is set up as a mystery, but really there is no great surprise at the outcome. I wanted to know more about both the present day protagonists, and wanted a greater sense of closure for the 1923 character. The Kashgar sequences kept me reading, but the novel as a whole felt like a lot of potential that is never quite fulfilled.

Tot iets verder dan de helft doorgeworsteld maar het bleef bij twee levenloze verhalen zonder connectie, en nog altijd geen fiets. Misschien komt het nog een keer, maar ik haak af.

I couldn’t get into this one.

It took me a good while to get into this book - after a dramatic start, I couldn't work out where the story was going to go. Now that I've finished it, I'm somewhere in the middle in terms of between being annoyed of the time wasted in reading it and raving about it.

Author: Suzanne Joinson (pub date June 4) (n)
Title: A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar
Description: Eva and her sister are new missionaries to Kashgar, supervised by the nearly fanatical Millicent. Their very first act gets them put under house arrest and awaiting trial on murder charges. Meanwhile, Millicent’s not-so-subtle methods seem to be stirring up animosity among the natives. Running parallel to this story is the modern-day story of Frieda and her new friend Tayeb, an illegal immigrant. Frieda inherits the contents of a flat belonging to someone she has never heard of, and has a week to dispose of them before the housing authority comes in to clear things out.
Review source: ARC from netgalley
Plot: Both plots, the historical and the contemporary, kept my interest. Eva is writing The Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar; she has brought her bicycle with her on the missionary trip. Along with her pointers on cycling, she uses her notebook as a diary to record the events taking place in this country where they are nearly the only foreigners.
Characters: Both of the main female characters, Frieda and Eva, are well-drawn and likeable. The supporting characters are also interesting and believable.
Writing style: It can be tricky to write parallel stories; the author has to make each story interesting in its own right, and they have to move at about the same pace. From the beginning I was more interested in the historical portion of the novel, probably because it was so alien to my own experience. Aside from this bit of unevenness, though, I enjoyed the writing style.
Audience: I’d place this novel squarely between chick lit and literary fiction. I think both groups of readers would enjoy it; it would make a good book group read as well.
Wrap-up: The book’s running theme of religious belief and what it means to the individual as well as to the community was very well done and thought-provoking. I did find the ending to be not as strong as the rest of the book, though. 3.5/5*