BURNT SHADOWS.

BURNT SHADOWS by KAMILA SHAMSIE.

August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimino with three black cranes swooping across the back. She is twenty-one and on the verge of marrying Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world runs white. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost.

Two years later, in search of new beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi to find Konrad's relatives and falls in love with their employee, Sajjad Ashraf. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history - personal, political - are cast over the entwined worlds of the different families as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11.

...... From the outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (from the prologue): Once he is in the cell they unshackle him and instruct him to strip.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: "I understand that the English might acknowledge their mistakes in order to maintain the illusion of their fairness and sense of justice, but they will not actually apologise for those mistakes when they are perpetrated on an Indian."

After the opening few chapters, everything about this novel seemed to fall flat. With no real highs or lows to speak of, it plodded along until its inevitable end leaving me feeling that the time invested in reading it could have been better spent.

Despite covering so many noteworthy periods in history, many of them traumatic, the author did not seem capable of conveying any real emotional depth to either plot or characters which is a shame as I feel this novel actually had a lot to offer.

Not a book I'd recommend, it took me all my time and determination to finish it.

Burnt Shadows was a book club read.