A novel in parts, set in colonial Africa, in Zanzibar, dealing with history, colonialism, family, cross-cultural love, and more. Richly textured and intriguing. Part One begins in 1899, when Hassalani, a shopkeeper rescues Martin Pearce from the desert, and Part Two jumps to the late 1950s and follows two brothers, Amin and Rashid, who live in Zanzibar. The novel's backdrop is European rule over Africa and its emergence from that rule, the independence of Zanzibar, and what ties these two decade-straddling periods together is the thinnest of threads between the cross-cultural love affair that occurs in 1899 between Hassalani's sister Rehana and Pearce, and the love affair in the late 1950s between Amin and Jamila who is the granddaughter of Rehana and Pearce. Some may find the novel disjointed, the leap from one time period to another, from one set of characters to an entirely new set, but I found it compelling.

Thanks to Riverhead Books and Netgalley for an ARC.

I just couldn't get into Desertion. And it moved at a snail's pace. I couldn't identify with the characters and the story line was lost on me. Maybe I'll try to read it again later, but I doubt it.