4.75/5 for
The Garden of Heaven by Madhulika Liddle. "Historical fiction" is a dime a dozen of course, but sadly far too many books in the genre are very much more "fiction" than "historical". Ms Liddle's works have always been marked by a painstaking attention to detail. That sort of rigor means that rather than "not letting the facts get in the way of a good story", Ms Liddle uses the facts as a framework on which to build a good story. And this was a good story.
The setup of the novel made me think of Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights, and it was very interesting to see how the apparently disparate threads of the narrator's tale came together. I very enjoyed seeing history "fleshed out" by being told through the lives of ordinary people, and picking up historical details I hadn't known. But the moment I knew Ms Liddle had brought me into the story was when I raged against one of the characters. I am now impatient for the continuation of this saga.