The Dragon Lady

This novel was superb, and deserves to be a major hit. The mixture of exoticism of a bygone era, mixed the racial tensions of Africa, and the beginnings of modern Zimbabwe, this novel is a winner. Her visual prose and nuanced characters leap from the page. I certainly hope this becomes a major movie, and a massive summer hit.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury Caravel for my ARC in exchange for an honest review. I’m torn between giving the book 4 stars vs 5 stars other reviewers gave. It’s a great story, told exceptionally well, with very vivid characters and poignant writing. Why 4 for me, well let’s just say it’s Jongy – her pet lemur. But it would be a disservice to give it less than 5, as this story deserves much more.
The Dragon Lady is based on a real character, Lady Virginia Courtauld and her life in 1950s Rhodesia. “Ginie”, is a woman with a beautiful soul, who never fit into society’s norms. Not during her first marriage and not during her second. Because she is a divorcee, with liberal views, she was spurned by high society, regardless of her husband’s wealth and title. She is called the Dragon lady, because of the snake tattoo on her leg, the story of which we never truly find out.
The story is beautifully written in 1950s Rhodesia, where Ginne and her husband Stephen set up their estate, La Rochelle. They strive to improve living and social conditions for the local people, setting up schools for trade and farming, and working to improve conditions in an African nation that was segregated and a commonwealth of the British empire. The story opens up with Ginny being shot and discovering who shot her comes as the end of the story. The story revolves around the climate in Rhodesia and it’s story more than with the actual shooting. That is the beauty and breadth of this story.
Ginny resonated on such a deep personal level with me. We learn of her life story, growing up in Italy, half Italian and have Romanian – to a wealthy merchant. Married to an Italian noble family before having the marriage annulled to marry Stephen – at a time when Kind Edward VIII abdicated his throne to marry Wally Simpson. Ginny has her secret and so does Stephen. Her’s from a mistake of a love affair when she was very young and his from WW1. Together they learn to love and support each other and fight for what they believe. Ginny is artistic, generous, well-meaning, good-hearted and loves her pets. Yet she is envied by women in her social circle.
The story deals with love, with jealousy, and with social, economic and political conditions in 1950s Africa and the Courtaud’s liberal views and involvement.
Ms. Treger wrote a wonderful and vivid story/ It’s historical fiction, but it’s a story bigger than its characters. It really is a story of country and its people. Both Black and White. It will be a story that will stay with me for years because of its depth.

This is the story of Ginie from the 1920s up to the 1950s and the extraordinary life she lived, from Scotland to Italy to Rhodesia where she makes a home with her second husband, Stephen. The marriage is not an unhappy one, but both partners are haunted by their pasts, she by her first love and he by the horrors of World War I. Reading about Ginie’s tropical garden in Rhodesia, I felt like I was there and could hear the birds and smell the tropical vegetation. But this novel is not all hearts and flowers and Ginia will find herself in the sights of a gun before her story ends. This book is so beautifully written, so lyrical and evocative I felt like I was emerging from another world whenever I had to put it down