Book Review - Babanango Trilogy - A Rougher Task

Babanango Trilogy - Part 1
A Rougher Task
by DJG Palmer
Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
344 Pages, 2024



What was the main reason for Britons joining the Army during the Victorian Era? Was it just patriotism or poverty? Who is a sapper and who is an officer? Why did the British invade Africa and Asia? DJG Palmer answers this and more in his part 1 of his trilogy, A Rougher Task.

Albert Bond finds himself penniless and friendless as his father dies while doing business and leaves him in debt which he repays by having to sell off everything he has including the golden pocket watch his parents presented him with for his 21st birthday. He plans to marry Clara who is the daughter of a retired Colonel but he doesn't have a respectable income. So he hopes to seek his fortune by joining the Army after due training at the Royal Military Academy just as Clara's father and his maternal Uncle Captain AW McGonagle.

As a gentleman officer, he is required to have a batman/sapper and he is lucky it is Jack Coleman who is a good looking, dutiful chap who has joined the Army because of poverty. However Bond is not too fond of his maternal uncle who has done a tour of India and now lives in Africa as his reputation in the Army is that of a maniac that Bond hides his correspondence with him so as not ruin his own reputation.

Bond and Coleman get on well despite their difference in class and rank. When their company is sent off to South Africa, so that they can fight the Zulus, they all get excited as they leave Chatham in 1878. It made me laugh that the Queen's regulations for a ship traveling to either Africa or India meant - a horse had 125 cubic feet of space while an officer had 175 and they stuck to it loyally. If two officers shared a cabin, then it was 275 cubic ft. while a sapper had only 50 ft. Some stuff like this are crazy and hilarious at the same time.

This book is all over the place as it is the first part introducing too many characters but is mostly about the brewing bromance between Bond and Coleman. There is the battle with Zulus which for the first time though fiction is an honest account, actually shows how scared and disorganised the British were when they fought, how terrified they were of Zulus when they first met them in the battle field which Brits would have lost but for their superior weaponry, etc. The McGonagle monologue might be okay for someone like me in India who knows about the sepoy mutiny but can be confusing for most people. 

For those who are interested in history, colonialism and war strategy - this would be a great read.

Buy it here    AMAZON

Abilene - Book review

 

Abilene

By Dare Delano

Genre: Fiction

 

“We are all going off to battle and we have no idea what we are in for” – Chapter 34

Len is a 12-year-old kid who longs to know the identity of her father as her mother Coralee refuses to tell her and neither does any in her mother's family or anyone in the small town of Abilene. Why are they all being so secretive in Texas? Len wonders if her parents broke up because her mom became pregnant with her. In her search for her father, we are also introduced to her grandmother Lorelai, her aunt Jean and Len friend’s mother Doris. Will Len find her father ?

Does really getting to know the identity of your dad that important? Does it even matter if your father is not around when you have a loving family of women to take care of you? In this so-called patriarchal world does it even matter who the father is when women are independent and can take care of themselves and their loved ones? This is the larger question the book deals with. Sure, there are good men but do women need men to live their lives all the time? When Len says, “I am enough”, you realize the strength of the human female.

I don’t think I have ever read a book that punches you in the gut and wants you to save the characters from disappointment, emotional and physical abuse like this one. The novel has multiple POV (Points of View) of women in different age groups. However, it is a relatively smooth read.

Initially, I thought the story was about Len but then with so many women telling their stories, it is hard not to recognize many women in our lives and society as Dare Delano narrates the story of one family. To think this is a debut novel surprised me as the author carefully captures the emotions of women in her novel. While I guessed how it would end, the twists and turns keeps you going at a pace that makes it a must read for all women.

 

To buy the book, go to Amazon