M. M. Kaye's Autobiographical Trilogy

I am thrilled to have stumbled upon this autobiographical trilogy of M. M. Kaye, The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. Anyone who has read Lauren Willig's The Betrayal of the Blood Lily knows that this book was her homage to Mollie Kaye's books and her enchantment with India, and being a fan of Willig's novels, I began collecting M. M. Kaye's works (which, unfortunately, are not easy to find -- I buy used copies.) Trade Wnd just blew me away and became a favorite last year, and I'm looking forward to reading Kaye's other epic novels. What an exciting and privileged life Mollie Kaye must have lived to have needed THREE volumes to write about her adventures in England, India and China! I know it will take me a while to work my way through these volumes (jam packed with fabulous photos of exotic settings, social gatherings, and fashions through the years), so I plan on savoring them. Here's a preview of each of her memoirs:




Volume I - The Sun in the Morning
In this wonderfully evocative autobiography M. M. Kaye, bestselling author of The Far Pavillions, Shadow of the Moon, and Trade Wind, recounts her first eighteen years in India and England. Rich in period detail and peopled with extraordinary and unforgettable characters, The Sun in the Morning is a brilliant and vivid memoir of life under the Raj.




Volume II - Golden Afternoon

Returning from an English boarding-school to India in 1927, Mollie Kaye plunges into the glories -- and embarrassments -- of the Delhi Season. But more than the social life of the Raj, she rediscovers her love for the country -- the magic paradise of Kashmir, the sun-scorched plains of Rajputana, the teeming life of the markets and the complexities of high-caste life. Spiced with humour, incident and her trenchant views of the world, both then and now, Golden Afternoon is suffused above all with the enchantment that is India.





Volume III - Enchanted Evening

M. M. Kaye is forced to leave her cherished home in India when her father takes a new post in China. Though at first disoriented by the unfamiliar customs and confusing protocol of her new surroundings, it is in China that she discovers the pleasures that come from independence. Coming into her own as a painter, Kaye first meets with artistic success in China and then moves to cramped quarters in London's South Kensington neighborhood where she begins to flourish as a writer. With vivid descriptions that comes with age, Mollie Kaye looks back on the years spent as a young woman in a world as yet unmarked by World War II's devastation.

*****************

To explore more of M. M. Kaye's works, click here. She's an author not to be missed!