Customer Reviews:
 Romance without the Frills May 22, 2008
I read this book for the first time about 5 years ago after reading The Far Pavilions, to me this is better. In fact I love this book so much that after I lent it to someone who never returned it I went out and bought another copy!
I really enjoyed the true stories about the battles and difficulties of the royal family at the time, and the love story of Salme.
At the beginning of the book I found Hero a very difficult character to like. But I think that was intentional. If Hero was a character that you automatically warmed to then you would find it very hard to construct a positive first impression of Rory.
On the subject of Rory I suppose it's essential to deal with the rape aspect, Kaye doesn't romanticize rape at all and Rory almost dies as a result of it. The fact is that Trade Winds represents a different time, a different place and in an extreme way (the whole novel is extreme really) all she is saying is that the lines between good and evil are more blurred than someone like Hero would be willing to accept Rory does some horrible things and he does some wonderful things. He and Hero balance each other out and as a pair they extinguish the more extreme aspects of one another's characters.
Anyway, this novel has everything; politics, adventure, comedy, tears, romance and unimaginable wealth!
Read it!
Brilliant January 12, 2008
I first read this book when I was about 16 - I loved it then and I still love it now. Although its basically just a romance, it stands out for me because of the characters and the setting. What's great about the lead characters is that they're very flawed, but you see them recognising and dealing with these flaws over the course of the book, and despite their faults they are both very likeable.
The heroine, Hero Frost, is a beautiful but quite cold and priggish do-gooder who goes out from Boston to Zanzibar to try to bring an end to slavery. As the book goes on, she starts to realise that things aren't as black and white as she's always thought and you really see her character to mature and to become more open and warm. Her relationship with the hero, a charismatic but cynical Emory Frost I really liked - I completely understood their attraction for each other despite their obvious differences and I loved the development of their relationship.
Another thing I loved about the book is the setting. You learn so much about Zanzibar, its people, politics and history that it almost another character - I've been desparate to go there ever since I read the book! Definitely, I'd recommend this book as a great read if you can get hold of it.
SPOILER BELOW
I've read reviews criticising the rape scene in the book. However, this scene (which by the way is implied not described - there aren't any "sex scenes" in the book) made complete sense to me in the context of the book, and I certainly don't agree that it condones rape in any way - in fact, you actually see one character commit suicide because of her rape. When you read the book you can understand (although not agree) why Emory acts does what he does. For me, what the author does is to take subjcts like slavery and rape that we all find repugnant and look at them more closely.
 a pro-rape novel May 27, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
One thing I can say about this novel is that I'm glad I borrowed it from the library and not bought. I would be ashamed of spending money on a book that presents rape as something that could be justified and lead to a great love! Use your imagination, female readers - would you really be so eager to fall in love with your rapist and want his child? In my eyes, this critical flaw reduces all the qualities of this novel to zero.
 Excellent book but with a flaw December 18, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
M M Kaye’s book “The Far Pavilions” is of course the book that made her famous and it is indeed an excellent book – although very long. Trade Wind is a shorter read and probably an easier read too. Her characters are all drawn warts and all – even the heroine, Hero Athena Hollis, has a very unfortunate tendency to look before she leaps, to believe she knows it all – and it’s a refreshing change to have a heroine who isn’t perfect. From reading the back of the book I presumed Dan Larrimore, the British Naval Officer, would be the hero, and the evil slave-trader Emory Frost was the baddie. But no, we ended up with two goodies, although one of them (Dan Larrimore) is rather dull.The gradual slide into the love story between Rory (Emory Frost) and Hero is portrayed well. She doesn’t immediately fall in love at his feet when she meets him – in fact, she hates him for quite a significant portion of the book. When he first meets her she has been battered by the sea and looks dreadful – it isn’t until she is restored to her family and cleaned up that he discovers that she is (surprise surprise!) beautiful. Their hate/love relationship moves nicely along in the book, as does the gradual unveiling of Hero’s Fiancé-to-be-Clayton as a baddie, until a rather strange section of the book which, for me, spoilt it. Clayton kidnaps and rapes Rory’s slave mistress (the mother of Rory’s daughter) which leads to her death. As a direct punishment, Rory kidnaps Hero. I presumed as this episode played out that Hero would discover at this point that she loves Rory and they would have a nice romantic seduction scene. But no – her rapes her. The next morning he says he won’t do it again – and does it again that evening. Of course, by the end of the book she realises she loves him and they get together, he goes on the straight-and-narrow (although we discover at the end that he hadn’t been such a baddie after all, and had saved many times more slaves than he’d traded) but, to me, there is always this problem that this man is a rapist. Never mind that we discover Hero quite enjoyed it the second time he did it – it just doesn’t sit right with a 21st century mind. Overall I did very much enjoy this book, the evocative writing that helps transport you to the Zanzibar of the mid1800s, helping to instruct me, certainly, on the African slave trade, how it worked, how it was so difficult to stop etc. But that little niggling detail of our handsome hero being a rapist still causes me problems. If only Hero had seduced him, or something, I could have awarded the book five stars. As it is, I can only give it four. But do read it! It’s worth it.
Fascinating historical novel and enthralling romance in one! September 12, 2003
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
A while ago I was browsing through my parents' (rather extensive) book collection looking for something to pass the time, the weather being very dreary at the time. My mum recommended I read "Trade Wind" by M.M. Kaye - and told me not to be deceived by the cover which, in most editions, features a colourful sky, an exotic landscape with palm trees as a background and a couple rather passionately embracing each other, completing the picture. On first sight this looks like a fluffy second-rate romance, but if you dare turn the first page, you will be hooked. (I can guarantee it.) In the book we meet our heroine, aptly named Hero Athena Hollis, daughter of an ordinary law-abiding, rich, American widower, Barclay Hollis. At a very young age she had her fortune told by a beggar woman at Hollis Hill, the family estate, that she would "make her own bed and lie on it" and many other cryptical things that nonetheless manage to call to mind visions of exotic and far-off destinations. When her father dies several years later, Hero, having practically forgotten the "prophecy", sails to Zanibar to go and live with her uncle Nathaniel Hollis, who is the American Consul on the island of Zanzibar, and his family. However, not long before her ship is supposed to reach the island, she is swept overboard in a near-collision with what turns out to be the Virago, the slave ship of the English captain Emory Frost (a rascal if ever there was one – no doubt he’ll make you swoon!). Coincidentally he is the one to scoop her out of the sea, her being tangled up in the Virago's nets, and this will prove to be the start of a very eventful episode in Hero Hollis' life.
She will get entangled in the the political intrigues at Beit-el-Tani, the royal palace of the Sultan of Zanibar, finds out things she never knew about the man she is supposed to marry, and as she gets more and more familiar with captain Frost, his doings and the way of life at Zanzibar, she also discovers that living up to your principles it a lot more easier in a big house in America than it is in a rough and uneducated eastern environment. M. M. Kaye has great skill in drawing characters, making them seem alive and real, and makes this an interesting (the epilogue says the novel is more or less historically accurate), passionate and heart-warming story. You'll love it.
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