Beneath a Marble Sky
John Shores
published 2006
344 pages
In 1632, the Emperor of Hindustan, Shah Jahan, consumed by grief over the death of his empress, Mumtaz Mahal, ordered the building of a grand mausoleum to symbolize the greatness of their love.
To escape a brutal arranged marriage, their daughter, Princess Jahanara must become the court liaison to Isa, the architect of the Taj Mahal. She is soon caught between her duty to her mother’s memory, the rigid strictures imposed upon women, and a new, though forbidden, love. Jahanara tries to stop the empire from becoming part of a civil war, and to save her father from his son Aurangzeb, a man whose hatred would extinguish the Islamic enlightenment from the Mughal Empire. To do so she must enlist her Hindu friend and her guardian as spies, and urge her brother, Dara, the designated heir to the throne, to take his place in the battle. Jahanara must deceive her husband as to the true father of her child, and must protect those closest to her from her enemies’ retaliation.
