Dance with Fireflies Paperback – 26 Feb. 2015

I hugely enjoyed reading this book. Set partly in India but mostly in England, it tells the story of a young Anglo-Indian woman, her baby and her English soldier husband, as she experiences the years from 1938 to 1945. It is good from the point of view of a young wife surviving in wartime England, whose husband is mostly away at the front. A vividly detailed and picture is painted of wartime from the woman-at-home's perspective, the hardships of finding food for her two young children, of maintaining a marriage under such separated and austere conditions, and of meeting unfamiliar and prejudiced in-laws. The empathy that grows as the story progresses for this resilient and vulnerable woman as she struggled to overcome great difficulties is emotional. She also encounters the most heartwarming genuine kindness from some. A very touching and emotional read, but also satisfyingly educating. At the end I so wanted to know 'what happened next' to the people described.

*****Dance with Fireflies is Jane Gill’s debut novel and a superb new literary talent has been discovered.Her book is an accomplished combination of a moving family story set against the dramatic events of World War 2. Phyllis leaves India with her soldier husband and young child on a troopship for a new life in England just before the war starts. As an Anglo-Indian she soon experiences the snobbery and racial prejudice of that era. Ironically she was used to servants in India but in England virtually became a servant herself and suffered from the cruelty of her mother-in-law and her husband’s family. The author has captured perfectly the challenges of a cold climate, wartime deprivation and all the sadness involved. The reader quickly becomes emotionally involved in Phyllis’s painful situation. Despite her love and devotion to her husband she is unbearably home sick for the food, scents, sounds and colour of India but she tries to make the best of her situation with good grace and humour. Jane Gill describes all this with a fascinating attention to detail and an extraordinary understanding of the emotions that Phyllis would have experienced.I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in a wartime saga brought vividly to life by the author’s deep understanding of human relations reflecting a period of national turbulence which is echoed by the family tension. I defy the reader not to be moved to tears by the end of the story. It would make an excellent film or TV series. Definitely a Five Star read and Jane Gill is now a new novelist to watch in the future…

This book illustrated the difficulties faced by an anglo-indian woman who fell in love with a seemingly glamorous British soldier in the dying days of the British Raj and who found herself transported to England on a long leave which turned into a bit of a nightmare. Here she not only had to undergo a huge lowering of her expectations but had to endure the hardly veiled prejudice of her husband's family against her "Indianess" but also had to cope with the difficulties of war-time life in Britain. She actually gets through cheerfully and with a great deal of good humour being a girl with an inner strength and buoyed up always by her devotion to the children and her soldier husband who of course has divided loyalties to her and his scheming relatives.

I loved Jane's book and found it difficult to put down.I spent a month in India many years ago and at school in the 1950's one of my friends was an Indian boy who had just arrived in the country and his parents would have had a similar lifestyle to Phyllis.It must have been such a disappointment for her to reach England and live with Arthur's Mum and Peg. What narrow minded women they both turned out to be. I could have throttled Peg when she took advantage and took Maureen away from Phyllis and I cheered when she got her back.I was left at the end of the book, wanting to know 'what happened next' to Phyllis and Maureen, did Phyllis find another love? I'd like to think so.

I really enjoyed reading Jane Gill’s book and would recommend it without hesitation. Jane’s descriptive prose of Phyllis’s early life in India and her later life in the UK during the war years was evocative. It highlighted to me the connection and almost parallel story of my mother-in-law’s mother, who undertook a similar journey and lifestyle change as a result of marriage. She, too, was a young Indian women who was forced to leave her beloved India and servants to set up a new life in the UK with an Englishman. Like Phyllis, she had no idea how to cook and housekeep and also encountered similar difficulties and prejudice that Phyllis did. Thank you Jane - your superb research and insight really helped bring my mother-in-law’s own story to life. Recommended.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in 3 sittings. The author paints vivid pictures of an era in which so many will share a recent ancestral past. I was transported to pre independent India at the end of the Raj, then to wartime Britain and the struggle of a family to accept and understand each others values and cultures in a world that is rapidly changing. I can't wait to find out what happens next and so hope that there will be a sequel.

Enjoyed the Indian connections and Shaldon references. The novel evoked many emotions good and bad. A thought provoking description of wartime life in England. I found myself quite frustrated with Phyllis' submissiveness but maybe this was how it was in society during that era; particularly if you were a young newlywed and a foreigner to boot. Whereas the book started slowly with lots of description and obstacles to overcome I did feel we were rushed along a river of easy solutions towards the end. Nevertheless an entertaining read.