I was drawn in by the stunning cover design which set the tone perfectly for this wonderful historical novel. Its a journey across continents and oceans, with daring adventures and memorable characters throughout. Well worth a read.

An engaging book really enjoyed it.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

DNF @ 19%

Set in eighteenth-century India, London, and Paris, it follows a young man’s dream of leaving a mark on the world.

I love historical fiction and what initially drew me to this book was the cover and then the blurb. However, I don't think this book was for me but it will certainly be for somebody else.

I think the beginning of this book really didn't help it, as it is certainly one where you have to persevere to get past the confusing beginning which is where it lost a lot of my interest. It confused me purely because it felt like I was dumped into the story, with little time to familiarise myself with the characters and story. This confusion only intensified when I realised that the book has no chapters, it's just continuous and within that, it changes to multiple POVs with little indication at times as to who is speaking, as well as multiple time periods where it will recount things that have happened in the past and then it will go back to the present day.

I do think this book also suffers from introducing so much historical context but with little explanation as a lot of things, I ended up having to google just so I would have an understanding of what was going on. I don't mind doing this here and there but it became too much, especially paired with when one of the characters speak in French so I would have to translate what they were saying, in order to understand what was going on. I think it glimpses over things that seem to have more importance to the plot, that definitely deserve more depth than what the book awarded it, the same can be said for the characters as I felt like they lacked any kind of depth to them, so I found it hard to be invested in them and the things that were happening to them. Normally I can look past the characters not being very strong if there's a focus on the plot, but I don't think the plot is necessarily strong either.

Thanks to Harvill Secker and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book early, in exchange for an honest review.

⚠️ CWs: war, colonisation, racism, suicide attempt, classism, violence, alcohol use, person with alcohol use disorder, suicide ⚠️

Loved loved loved this - the writing is unique and breathtaking, with a necessary dive into colonialism!

I didn't like this book as much as I wanted to. The writing is very good. The initial historical setting, late 18th century India, was interesting. But, for me. the story got boring when the plot moved from India to France and England.

Maybe it was the right book at the wrong time - I have read a lot of books set in England and France just after the Revolution in the last months. I will come back to Loot one day, I know it.

Such a riotous and fun read whilst also being very informative and educational. This is a book with wide appeal and hard not to love.

An immersive historical fiction novel set in India. Loot by Tania James begins in Mysore in the 1790s, and a young woodcarver called Abbas is summoned to the palace of Tipu Sultan to help a French clockmaker, Lucien du Leze build a clockwork tiger.

And so starts a series of events that will see the end of Tipu Sultans reign, Abbas’ journey to France and his subsequent quest to find and recover the tiger for himself. It’s a tale full of adventure, danger and romance. I really enjoyed it!

An epic tale spanning continents. But was it enough to capture attention?

The Story:

Abbas is a 17-year-old toy maker in Mysore. His toys catch Tipu Sultan's attention and he is summoned to court to make an automaton. Abbas is expected to assist French clockmaker Lucien du Leze. And they do manage to build the automaton. But at what cost?

What I Liked:

I have briefly read about Tipu Sultan in my history books. However, not being from Karnataka, we never had any in-depth discussion about him. For example, I didn't know he was interested in rocketry. Neither did I ever read any book about him. This book proved to be very educational. I am now ashamed that I did not know about one of the pivotal rulers of India.

When I picked this book, I was expecting grandiose descriptions (at least an elephant on the street? wearing jasmine flowers?). But I was pleasantly surprised. It is a novel about India as it should be. Yes, we are in ancient India, but people are not sprinkling rose water in their living rooms.

The writing was also really enjoyable. Though prosaic, it never became too heavy to overwhelm. It flowed easily and made me want to read on to know more about the characters.

What I Disliked:

I would not say this is an outright dislike but I think that the characters could have been more detailed. Abbas is the protagonist of the book and even until the end, I could not figure out what his true nature was. The others were a bit better - Lucien, Jehanne, and even Rum. But I would have loved to know them just a little more.

Another thing that irked me was that I could not specify the genre of this book. Is it a coming-of-age story? A mystery? A heist? A love story? Because there was a bit of everything in it. Maybe that is what the writer intended, for our lives hardly follow a single path.

Final Thoughts:

I have longed for a novel on India that wouldn't go overboard (i.e. not be written for Western audiences). Loot is the perfect example of it. It should be hyped more and be brought before a larger audience.

4 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for the ARC.

I loved this book.

The story follows Abbas from being an uneducated but very talented young wood carver in 18th century Mysore, to France to the V&A in London. I highly recommend this wonderful book, it was a fascinating and engrossing read that transported me to exotic climes and across the oceans accompanying Abbas in his in pursuit of happiness.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is pure escapism. Such a well told story, I was disappointed to get to the end of it. This is a book that can be described as "beautiful", the words paint such a picture. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

This is the story of Tipu's Tiger. I am lucky to have seen the famous Tipu's tiger in the Victoria and Albert museum. This book gives a fictionalised account of how it came to be and how it ended up there. This is a good and interesting tale well told. It is not a page turner in the thrilling sense, but it chugs along and you are always interested and keep on turning pages. I particularly loved this book for its straightforward writing style, lacking the surfeit of adjectives and feels that so many books seem to have now. I have found that I have started needing a regular palate cleanse of mystery fiction between these overwritten books, and this book, while not a mystery, is a great straightforward palate cleanse of a read. A good story well told. I would happily recommend this book to regular mystery readers who are looking for something different.

Unusual to see a historical fiction novel from a less represented time period but really welcomed. This is a new author to me but I would definitely read more from her.

A very different historical fiction novel to what I would normally read but enjoyable.
I would read more novels by this author

This book promised quality historical fiction at a less well known period of Indian history (to me at least!) I loved the atmosphere and the deeply evocative descriptions of society and this royal court. Tipu was an interesting ruler and I very much enjoyed his character. I actually found the main character Abbas less interesting and was disappointed the tiger did not have more prominence in the story. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

This is an excellent example of historical fiction, interweaving personal narratives, good fortune, ill fortune, and the apparent mishaps of life, with the larger processes of colonisation on a global scale. The story centres on a lowly toy maker, who comes to assist a French clockmaker at the court of Tipu Sultan. James uses the product of their work together, a wooden figure of a tiger attacking a British soldier, as a symbol of the dashed dreams of the local nobility in the face of British power in the Indian subcontintent. There is complexity in the narrative with the mirrored class dynamics in British and Indian social hierarchies, and there is also the coloniser's fascination with the imagined strangeness and exoticism of colonised lands and peoples. But these themes are handled delicately by the author, told through the lives of the characters without sentimentality, and the book is all the more powerful for it!

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advance copy.

This book is beautifully written, but suffers slightly from inconsistently plot pacing. The first and last thirds are excellent, with interesting and detailed characters, and the ending elevates the whole story. But the middle third seems lost, and was almost enough for me to give up on the story, but I'm glad in the end that I persevered. I think the middle of the book suffered from a loss of focus, both on message and because it strayed so far from our main characters.

Abbas is a young toymaker living in Mysore when he is whisked away from his family to the palace of Tipu Sultan. There Abbas is ordered to work with an exiled French clockmaker to create a surprise for the Sultan's children. Together they create an automaton called the 'Tiger of Mysore' and it is a huge success. Then the British come and defeat Tipu Sultan, they ransack the Palace and amongst the treasure they loot is the Tiger of Mysore.
This is an imagined story behind a museum treasure called the Tiger of Mysore and using that as the inspiration the author has created a rich fantasy. It's quite a beguiling book and the reader gets lost in teh prose but, as some reviewers have commented, it does not flow. Made up of several slightly related episodes this is more like a book of stories with a joining theme. It's still pretty good though!

A lovely and lasting story, in which we follow Abbas through the majority of his life and get to see if he realises his ambitions and overcomes his setbacks. It is very easy to become engrossed in this book and forget the real world outside. Perfect for a wet and windy day, where escapism is the best option. Well rounded characters and flowing narrative make it a recommended read.

DNF at 40%

This didn't work for me at all! In fact, if I am completely honest, it was boring. Too little significant plot and too much filler content. There's a lot of potential here, it could have been a lush historical novel set in such a novel and exotic location. I would have loved to learn more about that part of the world at that time, but I feel that too much has been wasted on insignificant details and European elements to leave a mark...

I read this ARC in exchange for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

I won't lie, I picked this out because of the absolutely stunning cover

OMG!! I absolutely loved this. Stunning. Just stunning

My favourite read so far this year. I know we're only in January but really I'm not sure I could read anything that would surpass this

Can't recommend highly enough