The Surya Trilogy

I finally finished The Surya Trilogy by Jamila Gavin this week. I read the first book, The Wheel of Surya, about a year ago, but the library didn't have the other two volumes at the time. In the Wheel of Surya, Marvinder and her little brother Jaspal live with their mother in the little village of Deri in Punjab, India in 1947. Their father has been away for many years, studying in England. War breaks out, and the Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs each take their turn raiding the villages, massacring anyone who is not of their religion. Eventually, having lost everything, Marvi, Jaspal, and their mother try to get to England to find their father. They get separated and the children stow away on a boat. They do find their father, but they also find out why he has stayed away for so long. In the second book, The Eye of the Horse, Marvi learns to play the violin and to love a boy, but Jaspal learns only to hate. They long to go back to India and find their mother. In the conclusion, The Track of the Wind, they do return to India with their father, but their lives do not turn out the way they had imagined. I would definitely recommend this trilogy. Parts of it reminded me of The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo.