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A review by bringerofbooks
The Company Daughters by Samantha Rajaram
5.0
Wow - what a wonderful whirlwind of humanity, love, adventure, and just overall life all wrapped up in this debut book. This book has quickly jumped to one of my favorites.
The story starts in Amsterdam during the 17th century, where we begin to learn about the protagonist and narrator, Jana. We quickly learn that Jana has not had it easy in her life so far, having run away from an abusive and broken household, and been on her own searching for work and trying to survive. She finally finds work with the Reynst household, and things begin to look up for her - Master Reynst and his daughter Sontja are very kind to her, despite her being their servant. Unfortunately a series of events leads to Jana and Sontja out of a home and no future in sight. Out of options, they sign up with the East India Company as Company Daughters, where they will become brides of male settlers in Batavia.
As we go through the story, it's impressive how much Jana has gone through and how she overcomes, but makes mistakes and fails like a normal person. This makes the story so much more realistic and beautiful.
The author really brought out the settings and made all the characters so realistic, I could not put it down - I had to read the whole book in a night. I am extremely excited to read more from this author.
Thank you so much Net Galley and the publisher Bookouture for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
The story starts in Amsterdam during the 17th century, where we begin to learn about the protagonist and narrator, Jana. We quickly learn that Jana has not had it easy in her life so far, having run away from an abusive and broken household, and been on her own searching for work and trying to survive. She finally finds work with the Reynst household, and things begin to look up for her - Master Reynst and his daughter Sontja are very kind to her, despite her being their servant. Unfortunately a series of events leads to Jana and Sontja out of a home and no future in sight. Out of options, they sign up with the East India Company as Company Daughters, where they will become brides of male settlers in Batavia.
As we go through the story, it's impressive how much Jana has gone through and how she overcomes, but makes mistakes and fails like a normal person. This makes the story so much more realistic and beautiful.
The author really brought out the settings and made all the characters so realistic, I could not put it down - I had to read the whole book in a night. I am extremely excited to read more from this author.
Thank you so much Net Galley and the publisher Bookouture for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.