Review: City of Jasmine

City of Jasmine by Deanna Raybourn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I loved this! It's a historical adventure set in Damascus and the nearby desert during the 1920s. We have an intrepid British female pilot and her scandalous old aunt, a parrot, a dead husband not quite dead, archaeological treasure, and deadly pursuit across the desert.

Once again, Raybourn brought both the place and the time period alive. She put me down right in the desert with the sights and smells, and awoke my sympathies with the personal nature of the cultural conflicts after the Great War.

I liked it even better than A Spear of Summer Grass because it was more full of action and adventure. I also liked it better because there's none of the promiscuity that I disliked in that book, but Evie is still a liberated, willful heroine. I loved both her and Gabriel and their spirited sparring.

A note of caution - don't read the prequel novella before reading this! It gives too much background information. The mystery of Gabriel wasn't much of a mystery to me, unfortunately. I wish I knew how much I would have loved it without knowing anything about him beforehand.



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