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

I was drawn to this book purely for its beautiful cover.
I’m so glad I did as I loved it. Based on a real carved automation carved for Tipu Sultan ruler in Mysore, India and now in the V and A.
Abbas a poor woodcarver comes to the attention of Tipu and joins a French clock worker to create the automation.

We follow Abbas across continents following his creation.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the copy to read and review.

I was immediately drawn to this book by its brief summary: An epic historical novel of plundered treasure and lasting love. Now for me the story doesn't centre around either the treasure nor the love story. It's all about the main character's desire to have a long lasting legacy. The historical setting is well written and deeply interesting. The writing is excellent and the characters are extremely well written.

Loot by Tania James is a novel about Abbas, a seventeen year old woodcarver living in 18th century Mysore. He is discovered by Tipu Sultan, and apprenticed to clock maker Du Leze. Together they make a mechanical tiger which is now the famous automation Tipu's Tiger on display in the V&A museum. The tiger was taken to London after Tipu's death in 1799. Loot follows Abbas' journey on the trail of the tiger.

The premise of this novel is a really exciting one as it promises a captivating journey across the continents. However, for me, I found it poorly executed. The author has clearly done her research into this story but I feel perhaps it all gets a bit bogged down with facts that it feels flat and lacklustre.

I was more interested in the first part of the book and learning about Abbas and life in the Sultan's opulent palace. However as we journey through Europe the story seems to lose its way. More characters are introduced pushing Abbas into being a secondary character.

Overall for a short book I found it very slow paced and a bit of a plod to read.

My thanks to Random House UK and Vintage for providing me with an electronic copy to read and review.

An entertaining, well-researched and intelligently-written historical fiction novel with obvious and very explicit contemporary relevance to the West’s ongoing debates about the legacies of colonialism – particularly the plundered pieces of art which still reside in Western museums.

Even the title itself is an English word borrowed from the Sanskrit (and in the novel is used also as the title of a card game which takes place during a pivotal scene between two female characters).

In particular this novel places an imagined story around one such piece – the intriguing Tippoo’s Tiger, still displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum and usefully described on its website

"'Tippoo's Tiger' was made for Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore in South India from 1782 to 1799 … The tiger, an almost life-sized wooden semi-automaton, mauls a European soldier lying on his back. Concealed inside the tiger's body, behind a hinged flap, is an organ which can be operated by turning the handle next to it. This simultaneously makes the man's arm lift up and down and produces noises intended to imitate his dying moans."

The author has said that she was first drawn to writing on the piece by the impact it had on her: "I’d never seen a work of art—mechanized or otherwise—that was so bold in its contempt of British power, so irreverent and anti-colonialist"

She has originally intended to write a “heist” novel featuring some people trying to reclaim the piece from an English country house – but then thinking about what would motivate the protagonists, was drawn to making them related to the artists who produced it, which she imagines (not out of line with scholarly views) to have been produced by a local carver and a French artisan (for the automata parts).

And instead we have a novel which I think is best thought of in three parts.

The book opens in Mysore in 1794, when a young toymaker Abbas is summoned to Tipu’s court to assist Lucien Du Leze, a French watchmaker and inventor now effectively exiled from his home country in the post revolution tumult and the two work together on building the Tiger and then on a longer apprenticeship, before due to a change in circumstance in his homeland Du Leze returns (with a fellow exile and that friend’s half-Indian daughter Jehanne). This opening third of the novel is quite intimate part-character study (of Du Leze – despairing of his future and Abbas – convinced he has an artistic destiny ahead of him and concerned as to how he will “leave his mark”) alongside some sumptuous period colour of Tipu’s virulently anti-English court.

The middle section is more varied: coverage of the final months of Tipu Sultan’s life as he tries diplomatic and military efforts to stave off an imminent English attack; detail of the bloody siege of Mysore, the death of Tipu Sultan and Abbas’s narrow escape from the pillage and plunder – the latter of which includes a Colonel Selwyn and his sepoy aide-de-camp man servant Rum claiming the Tiger as a prize for Selwyn’s curio-collecting wife; a diary of a seaman on a scurvy struck ship on which Abbas gets passage to Europe as a ship’s carpenter; Rouen France in 1805 as Jehanne (now De Leze) mourning the death of her adopted father and wondering what to do with the shop she has inherited; and then Abbas arriving at the shop thinking to re-apprentice himself to De Leze and desparing of his death; Jehanne (a maker of fashion) and Abbas (a partly skilled watchmaker) struggling to make a living.

And the final third is effectively the originally conceived heist novel – set in the English country seat of Cloverpoint Castle as Jehanne (with Abbas disguised badly as her servant) visit Selwyn’s widow and her land agent/secret lover Rum offering them various items from Tipu’s court (with a long run aim to see if they can swap them for the Tiger) with the novel then becoming something of a four piece.