Pearl

Before Raffles, before Rajah Brooke, there was Francis Light, the 18th-century trailblazer in the Malay Archipelago. In this second volume of Penang Chronicles, the eponymous pearl, Martinha Rozells, embodies the diverse heritages of the Straits of Malacca in the 18th century. From her birth in Phuket to her childhood at the court of Kedah, we enter the fascinating world of a well-born woman of the Indies. Meanwhile her new husband, Francis Light, is still the dragon in search of his elusive pearl: a British settlement on the Straits of Malacca. From the courts of Siam and Kedah, to capture by the French and Dutch, from the salons of Calcutta through gun-running in the Straits, Pearl takes the reader on an astonishing journey culminating in the attainment of a dream on the island of Penang.