The Road to Rangoon

Description

In 1980s Burma, the British ambassador's son goes missing. Discovered in the north of the country, Michael Atwood is in imminent danger, trapped between sides fighting a bitter civil war and with no way of getting back to Rangoon. His best hope of salvation is to trust Thuza, a ruby smuggler who offers to help him escape. Beautiful and deeply scarred, Thuza has spent her entire life in a frontier town between rebel and government forces, never choosing a side but trying to make a living from both. For Thuza, the ambassador's son is her ticket out of poverty. For Than, an ambitious military officer, exploiting those caught up in the war offers an opportunity for promotion and distinction. But as all three learn to their cost, in this exotic, enigmatic and savage country, everyone has a price. This is a tale of ambition, salvation and hope that confirms Lucy Cruickshanks as a master storyteller.

Lucy Cruickshanks' love of travel inspires her writing. A great fan of the underdog, she's drawn to countries with troubled recent histories, writing about periods of time when societies are at their most precarious and fraught with risk. She's fascinated by their uniqueness and moral ambiguity, and in capturing the people who must navigate them. Her debut novel, The Trader of Saigon, began life after she sat beside a man on a flight who made his fortune selling women. It was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and the Guardian Not The Booker Prize, longlisted for the Waverton Goodread Award and named a Top Ten Book of 2013 by The Bookbag. Lucy was born in 1984 and raised in Cornwall, UK. She holds a BA in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Warwick and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. She lives on the south coast of England and divides her time between writing and caring for her young family.

I enjoyed Cruickshanks' handling of her material, and her research is thorough and fascinating. She weaves it all together into an atmospheric, evocative novel * Frost Magazine * Cruickshanks is skilled in her ability to marry her fiction with well-researched historical events. Indeed, having had a prior interest in Myanmar and its recent history, Cruickshanks effectively depicted a visceral world of bloodshed, without compromising on historical integrity * The Student Newspaper * For someone who knew relatively nothing of the situation in Burma, this book is a real eye opener! Imagine living under such fear and not only from the obvious enemy but from your neighbour or man on the street who could just as easily betray you. Lucy has done a great deal of timeless and detailed research... and made it one heck on an insight into a better understanding of Burmese history * BookTrail * A beautifully atmospheric novel * Woman's World * Set in a very difficult period of Burma's history, this novel brings the rawness and uncertainty of the times to life in the later 20th Century. There are very carefully observed mannerisms amongst the local people, and the oppressive times in which the people of Burma were living are acutely portrayed. It cleverly sets the historical for anyone who is going to visit in the 21st Century who wants to gain a sense of the country of Myanmar today * Trip Fiction * An enjoyable and well-written novel * South China Morning Post * An intelligent and incredibly impactful read that stays with the reader long after turning the final page * Novelicious * A gutsy, atmospheric thriller * Woman & Home * Gripping and thought-provoking * Candis, Book of the Month * Burma springs to life through Cruickshanks' beautiful prose * Dinah Jefferies, author of The Tea Planter's Wife * Lucy Cruickshanks' writing is powerful, pacy, vivid and involving * Isabel Wolff, author of A Vintage Affair *