It opens in 1919, with Sita beginning to recount the events of her life to a young Englishwoman. It is less a tale of this great warrior queen, and more the story of one of her bodyguards, Sita, who has defied her culture’s norms from childhood and is accepted into the durgasavi, the queen of Jhansi’s elite, all-female guard. I think the person who wrote the synopsis must have been reading a different book, or perhaps just read the last fifty pages or so, because while it’s a fair description of the last chapters, it doesn’t describe the majority of the book. Yeah, that’s not really what this book is about. See that synopsis there? Doesn’t it describe a fascinating tale of a warrior queen defending her kingdom against the onslaught of British colonialists? Doesn’t it sound like Lakshmi Bai was a forward-thinking queen who called the women of Jhansi to her side to fight for their land? In the tradition of her bestselling novel Nefertiti, which Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, called “a heroic story with a very human heart,” Michelle Moran once again brings a time and place rarely explored in historical fiction to rich, vibrant life.

Told from the perspective of Sita, one of the guards in Lakshmi’s all-female army and the queen’s most trusted warrior, The Last Queen of India traces the astonishing tale of a fearless ruler making her way in a world dominated by men. Although her soldiers are little match against superior British weaponry and training, Lakshmi fights against an empire determined to take away the land she loves. Instead of surrendering, Queen Lakshmi raises two armies-one male, one female-and rides into battle like Joan of Arc. But when the British arrive in the Kingdom of Jhansi, expecting its queen to forfeit her crown, they are met with a surprise. After all, India is not even a country, but a collection of kingdoms on the subcontinent.

From Goodreads: When the British Empire sets its sights on India in the 1850s, it expects a quick and easy conquest.

The last queen of india michelle moran