I enjoyed this book, although not as much as Sea of Poppies. The story is a bit more rambling, with some very lengthy tangents which don’t, as far as I can tell, have a great deal to do with the overall plot. All of the fascinating investigations of the linguistic acrobatics that characterize pidgin languages are still a theme here, but they’re somehow more foregrounded and less interesting than they were in the first book. And we lose track, at least for the course of this book, of some characters I had really hoped to follow: Jodu, Kalua, and, except elliptically, Paulette and Deeti. That being said: new characters are introduced and they are very likable and interesting to follow. The historical drama of this book is thicker and more compelling than that of Sea of Poppies, and again Ghosh illustrates a time and place - pre-Opium Wars China - that has not been very widely explored in English literature to date. The narrative is fun to follow, and the end is just as tragic and human as we could possibly ask for an historical fiction that shines a not-very-complimentary light on the misadventures of the English Empire. I’m looking forward to the third book in the series!