Rose Tremain is a wonderful writer and this is a wonderful book, however, there were parts of it I almost wanted to skip over because I really wasn't interested in the characters involved.

The heroine of the book is Jane Adeane. She lives in Bath with her father, Sir William Adeane. He is a doctor and she a nurse who works with patients at the baths and is known as the angel of the baths because her touch seems to heal so many. She is unusually tall, 6ft 2inches and striking. We meet her first in the tearoom of another important character, Clorinda Morrisey. She is having tea with Dr Valentine Ross, who works with her father, and Ross proposes marriage to her. She is insulted, turns down the proposal and leaves the tearoom abruptly. From here all the various threads of the story start to unfold. Jane, unable to stay in Bath after the proposal goes to stay with her aunt Emmeline in London. Valentine so hurt by the refusal decides that he must go Borneo to find his brother Edmund who has contacted him to tell him he has malaria. Sir William's cook resigns her position because there is no longer anyone running the house properly and she cannot cope without the steady hand of Jane keeping things in order. This leads to Clorinda being asked to help both doctors with pies for lunch and dinner which she agrees to help with.

From here we visit London, Paris and Borneo. In Borneo, we meet Sir Ralph Savage an English "Rajah" because this is where Edmund has ended up, recovering but not recovered from malaria ... And here we also come to the parts of the story that I was least interested in and found it difficult to care about. I think this was in part because there was so little connection to Jane, who I loved, and a little too much to Valentine who I really did not like at all - which was fine, I don't think we're supposed to warm to his character. If there had been less of Sir Ralph, his lover Leon and Borneo, this book would have scored five stars easily because it was so very good and the stories of Jane, her aunt, her father, the lovely Clorinda and Julietta and her husband utterly engaged me... They lived for me because the writing was perfect, they were perfectly formed and she brought the period to life so beautifully that I felt as though I were there with them some of the time. Others, however, may enjoy Borneo just as much as Paris, London and Bath and be just as engaged with the threads that lead us there as the threads I loved so much. and if they do feel the same as me I think that they will still love the book, as I do, because it is so close to perfection that falling a little short of that is still closer to it than most books could ever hope to be.

There are several intertwined stories in this book. They all involve strong themes of love and sexuality. It is cleverly plotted, and the historical setting is well-depicted in the manners, dress, gender inequalities and medical practices of the time. However, I did not engage with any of the characters and skimmed some of the more descriptive parts of the narrative. Rose Tremain is an accomplished author but this one is not to my taste, unfortunately.

I loved this! This a story of self determination and life paths chosen; what are the driving forces of our lives? What motivates? What holds us back? The characters are well drawn, the settings, Ireland, Bath and Borneo. The women seem stronger than the men, capable of rolling with life’s punches, while the men seem rather ineffectual. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I really enjoyed Islands of Mercy. It was a calm, slow and meandering story split into different narratives. I very much enjoyed the two leading ladies stories both so different yet drawn together. I loved to hate Valentine Ross, was drawn to Jane and her awakening with her beautiful French lover, enjoyed Chlorinda journey and didn't really know what to feel about the rajah and his never ending fight for success.

This book is quite long and slow paced but will take you on a journey from London to Borneo, Ireland to Bath and into a story of love, passion, strength and weakness.

What a rich cast of characters and broad variety of locations is here brought to life by strong characterisation and vivid description. All of the senses are engaged, sound being strong, smell being overwhelming from sweet perfume to the stench of disease.

The disparate story lines at first felt disjointed but were all skilfully woven together, with the breathless unravelling and the many surprises lasting until the very last page.

So much powerful human emotion is here, love turned to hate by jealousy, empathy, greed, lust for power, compassion, joy, despair. Relationships, both loving and troubled within families and between couples are exposed and explored. Adult behaviour has its roots, for example, in feelings of being the less favoured child, and finally another less favoured child escapes to a happy life.

This is a story of the best and worst of human nature ending with a powerful sense of hope. A truly satisfying book which has what many do not: a beginning, a middle and an end.

It a universal human experience to wonder about the paths we chose to take in life and whether or not we have made the right decisions. How much of our choice is fate and how much are we our own agents in our own destiny? I thought Rose Tremain explored these ideas both literally through the walking of paths, roads and streets but also metaphorically through her exploration of society, culture and gender roles.
The story, set in 1845, follows predominately the life of Jane Adeane, the dutiful daughter of renowned Bath doctor William Adeane. She rejects a marriage proposal from her father’s colleague Valentine Ross quite early on in the novel which immediately establishes the fact that Jane is someone unconventional and as someone who is willing to follow her own path in life. Her relationship with her aunt Emmeline, herself a bohemian character who lives alone and spends her time painting and welcoming the London cultural elite into her home, is one of the most sympathetically drawn within the novel.
Indeed it is the women who seem to have agency within this text, from Clorinda Morrissey who escaped famine in Ireland to create her own tea business in Bath to Julietta Sims who enjoys apparent freedom within her marriage to indulge in relationships with women, forming a close and lasting bond with Jane. All these women drive and push forward along their paths whilst the men, particularly in the form of the Ross brothers, lose their way and actively leave the path with disastrous consequences. I felt Rose Tremain’s narrative was thoroughly researched, crossing many cultures and continents, it also cast all the characters in complex and sympathetic ways. There are no villains here but rather a contemplation of the how we deal with the storms and obstacles in life that may take us away from the path set out before us.

.Rose Tremain ambitiously covers massive themes of loyalty, betrayal, guilt and love and a huge amount of geographical and emotional ground In ‘Islands of Mercy’. And she writes some exquisite passages of description, particularly of wildlife in SE Asia and weather in all its variety. A rich text, indeed.
The main focus of interest for me, was nurse Jane Adeane ‘Angel of the baths’ in Victorian spa city, Bath where she is regarded with awe by those in need of healIng. On a visit to her beloved Bohemian artist aunt, she falls for the devastatingly beautiful socialite Julietta and abandons conventional Victorian expectations of respectability.
Even more exotic is the ‘love’ between White Rajah Sir Ralph Savage and materially ambitious houseboy Leon in Borneo. And then there’s Clorinda who mothers everyone and brings married bliss to Jane's elderly Sir William, and solvency to her Irish brother. Oh, and Valentine Ross who proposes to Jane early in the novel and then recklessly heads off to Borneo to search for his brother Edmund.

All these plot strands are linked, but the overall effect for me is a bit of a tangle. An over-egged pudding, maybe from an excellent writer

My thanks to @NetGalley and @ChattoandWindusUKVintage for my free pre-release download.

I requested because I love her books and I wasn't disappointment. Rose Tremain is so good at presenting her characters, warts and all, so they stand clearly before you, yet she does this in so few words. I loved this from beginning to end.

Once again, Rose Tremain has produced a beautifully moving and rich novel. Initially the multiple story lines feel a little jarring, but eventually build into a powerful thread of storytelling that explores the way people seek freedom, power, beauty and love.

The Victorian world - from the well-to-do streets of Bath to London's Bohemian salons, to the jungle of Borneo - is conjured so remarkably, and its characters are so powerfully constructed, from fierce and fearless Jane to the gentlemanly doctor whose anger writhes beneath the surface.

Wonderful storytelling.

You can't always get what you want but it's how you live with this knowledge that is important. That about sums up the whole story of the novel but when it's written by Rose Tremain it becomes so much more. I am a Tremain fan since Restauration because I simply love her writing which is radiant and full of beautiful imagery. She is a master story teller, always focused on humanity's foibles, but in a good way as she makes the reader understand her characters and their motives. To find your destiny is the hardest thing to do and so often it. is not what you expected. Excellent read!

This book is a brilliant multi-layered story.

Taking us from the genteel tea rooms of Bath to the jungles of Borneo via the slums of Dublin and glorious Paris.

Islands of Mercy is a book which explores the nature of love with well drawn, complicated characters.

Rose Tremain is a master storyteller.

Rose Tremain is a genius storyteller. In ‘Islands of Mercy’ she gives us yet another multi-layered narrative exploring, both literally and metaphorically, the importance of understanding who we are and our place in the world. From the jungles of Borneo to London’s relaxed soirées, from arak and rice served in a mud hut to Victoria sponge in the tea rooms of Bath, from a slum in Dublin to a rajah’s palace, the author explores many types of love, the importance of generosity of spirit and the need for mercy in a world full of greed and ignorance.
Set in 1865, we are introduced to Bath through the delightful Clorinda Morrissey, an Irish emigrant who has set up a tea shop in the city. Throughout the novel, Tremain uses her as an example of someone who, despite past suffering, has the strength of character to do what she must to protect those whom she loves. This includes the ‘Angel of the Baths’ Jane, nurse and daughter of the renowned Dr William Adeane. Jane escapes to her artist aunt’s bohemian London home after refusing a marriage proposal from her father’s sidekick, Dr Valentine Ross. There she falls outrageously in love with the beautiful Julietta and becomes one of the latter’s many ‘beauties’, albeit a particularly special one. Nevertheless, after a trip to Paris during which she grows even more obsessed with her lover, she is persuaded to reconsider Ross’s proposal when she returns to Bath.
On the other side of the world in Borneo, Valentine’s younger brother explorer Edmund is lost in the jungle. Whilst the English ‘rajah’ Sir Ralph Savage worries for his safety, his Malay servant and lover, Leon, is secretly delighted that the young man has disappeared. When Valentine boards a ship bound for the East in search of his brother, his quest reveals far more to him about himself than he could have possibly imagined back in England.
This is a wonderful novel. As ever, Tremain’s research is impeccable. Her knowledge of the times is woven into her storytelling so naturally that the reader is immediately immersed in the worlds of nineteenth century Bath, London, Paris, Sarawak and Dublin. And, further back in time, the title of this novel brings to mind Shakespeare’s suggestion that, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained./It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…’ Whilst ‘Islands of Mercy’ acknowledges the exploration necessary to truly understand the self, it also suggests that it is in still, quiet moments that we may learn the most.
My thanks to NetGalley and Chatto & Windus for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain:

The novel follows Jane Adeane, a young woman working as a nurse in Bath in the mid 19th century. Jane is only too aware that she is unusual and different (not only is she extraordinarily tall, but she is also attracted to women), and she is torn between a female lover and the pressure to conform to convention and marry a respectable doctor. But Jane believes she is destined for other things.
Meanwhile, Sir Ralph Savage, a British ‘rajah’ in Borneo, is battling demons of his own. Compromised by his transgressive passions, and the invasive power of the rainforest which continually thwarts his schemes, Savage must fight to survive. His and Jane’s interconnected stories take them from the genteel tearooms of Bath, to the steamy jungles of Borneo, via Dublin and Paris. It is a sumptuous, intricately told tale, full of beautiful imagery and complicated characters. With ‘Islands of Mercy’, Tremain has shown yet again what a master storyteller she is.