What do you think?
Rate this book
Mandalay: A Ruby for the Queen
From out of the blue, Sue Henderson receives a mysterious letter from an old firm of London solicitors. This tells her to collect a Captain's trunk that hasn't seen daylight for over a century. Inside the trunk is an exquisite jade Buddha, a stack of dusty diaries and an intriguing letter from her distant grandmother. The diaries unfold to form a book called 'Mandalay', which records the gripping events which lead to Burma falling under British Imperial rule. Within the yellowing pages, sumptuous palaces, elephants, Buddhist rituals and unbridled love combine to create a sparkling Ruby for the British Throne. But how does the ancient writer of the diaries know so much about her distant descendant. And what was the true purpose of entombing the trunk for over a century?
136 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 18, 2012
4 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Leonard
9 books5 followersRaymond Leonard: Scientist, Novelist, Poet or Latter-day Prophet
Raymond Leonard was born during an air-raid on the centre of Manchester, in which his parent’s home was destroyed. As a youth, in the City slums, he devised many ways of helping the family budget, including a Newspaper boy, and running a Fruit and Vegetable stall on bombed land. Having left school at 14, he went on to win a State Scholarship and then a Ph.D. After a Senior Industrial Career he joined the Academic Staff at Manchester University. Here he founded his own department of Total Technology, which helped win the Queen’s Anniversary Prize, presented at Buckingham Palace. During his academic career he supervised numerous doctoral students, wrote over 200 research papers in science and engineering, and a textbook on Applied Technology. He also co-authored the book, How to Avoid The British Disease, which the then Prime minster, Margret Thatcher, referred to as being her Little Bible.
Lifelong passions for Professor Leonard have been Science, Religion and The Future. These interests inspired a series of futuristic novels. When the Daily Express was reviewing The Nostradamus Inheritance it carried the headline, Scientist Predicts The Day The World Will End. This caused widespread concern in the UK. The headline also helped the book hit the best seller lists, and even find translation into Japanese and Hindi. This public concern for the future was heightened when Professor Leonard’s own predictions in The Nostradamus Inheritance started to be chillingly fulfilled. Other predictions in subsequent novels, such as the immediate collapse of the Soviet Union, as forecast in Legacy of The Shroud, now titled The Jesus Clone, added to his growing reputation as a Latter-day Prophet. This prophetic image resulted in Professor Leonard giving the Cardinal Newman Lecture at Oxford University. Here the title was Reconciling Prophesy With Freewill. It was noted that the Old Library was filled to capacity for Professor Leonard’s presentation.
All Raymond Leonard’s five novels, suitably reviewed by the author, are now available on Amazon/Kindle. There is also an Amazon edition of the complete collection of his poems (published or otherwise). A selection of these poems is freely available for reading on his website, www.rayondleonard.com. The poems, entitled, Pearls Along The Path, bridge the wrongly perceived divide between Science and Faith. They also give a vision of the world that awaits ourselves and our fragile Earth.
Raymond Leonard was born during an air-raid on the centre of Manchester, in which his parent’s home was destroyed. As a youth, in the City slums, he devised many ways of helping the family budget, including a Newspaper boy, and running a Fruit and Vegetable stall on bombed land. Having left school at 14, he went on to win a State Scholarship and then a Ph.D. After a Senior Industrial Career he joined the Academic Staff at Manchester University. Here he founded his own department of Total Technology, which helped win the Queen’s Anniversary Prize, presented at Buckingham Palace. During his academic career he supervised numerous doctoral students, wrote over 200 research papers in science and engineering, and a textbook on Applied Technology. He also co-authored the book, How to Avoid The British Disease, which the then Prime minster, Margret Thatcher, referred to as being her Little Bible.
Lifelong passions for Professor Leonard have been Science, Religion and The Future. These interests inspired a series of futuristic novels. When the Daily Express was reviewing The Nostradamus Inheritance it carried the headline, Scientist Predicts The Day The World Will End. This caused widespread concern in the UK. The headline also helped the book hit the best seller lists, and even find translation into Japanese and Hindi. This public concern for the future was heightened when Professor Leonard’s own predictions in The Nostradamus Inheritance started to be chillingly fulfilled. Other predictions in subsequent novels, such as the immediate collapse of the Soviet Union, as forecast in Legacy of The Shroud, now titled The Jesus Clone, added to his growing reputation as a Latter-day Prophet. This prophetic image resulted in Professor Leonard giving the Cardinal Newman Lecture at Oxford University. Here the title was Reconciling Prophesy With Freewill. It was noted that the Old Library was filled to capacity for Professor Leonard’s presentation.
All Raymond Leonard’s five novels, suitably reviewed by the author, are now available on Amazon/Kindle. There is also an Amazon edition of the complete collection of his poems (published or otherwise). A selection of these poems is freely available for reading on his website, www.rayondleonard.com. The poems, entitled, Pearls Along The Path, bridge the wrongly perceived divide between Science and Faith. They also give a vision of the world that awaits ourselves and our fragile Earth.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 3, 2016
It was on a flight from Yangon-Bangkok-Bangalore that I picked up the book Mandalay: A Ruby for the Queen for being the first book to read in 2016. And what a way to begin the New Year!
The story is set in Mandalay (and Ava, the older name for present day Inwa in the Mandalay region of Myanmar) during the last days of the reign of King Mindon. King Mindon ruled Myanmar during 1853-1878. At that time, the British had already annexed Lower Myanmar (south of Mandalay) and had their eyes set on Ava.
The story begins with Sue Henderson receiving a message in present day London from her ancestor who had died 100 years before to claim an old trunk that contained several documents and a beautiful Jade Buddha. Sue finds a picture of her great grandmother in the trunk dressed in traditional Myanmar dress and notes that she does have a striking resemblance to her great grandmother. The story itself unfolds from the writings of Sue's great grandmother Lindy Chesterton.
Lindy is partly of Royal Myanmar blood with her father a British Sea Captain and her mother a Myanmar Royal Lady. Many of the other characters are real persons like King Mindon himself, Queen Hsinbyumashin, their daughter Supayalat and son-in-law Thibaw. Cousins Lindy and Supayalat grow up together in the Mandalay Palace until Lindy is sent to study in Scotland for a period of ten years. On her return, Lindy finds Ava in a situation of deep turmoil. King Mindon is old and has not announced a successor. Queen Hsinbyumashin who had been a dominating figure during this period plans that her son-in-law Thibaw succeeds the throne. History does tell us that Thibaw does succeed King Mindon after a massacre of nearly all the other princes, their wives and children inside the Mandalay palace prior to the coronation.
The massacre sets a series of events in motion as the British declare war and capture the Mandalay region. King Mindon and Queen Supayalat are exiled to Ratnagiri in India. Much of the really short book is just factual history retold by Lindy through her writings to her future descendant (that turns out to be Sue). How does the story pan out in respect of the Jade Buddha? What is it with the "Ruby for the Queen"? I recommend that you read the book!
Currently living in Mandalay, having read a little of the history of the times in Mandalay, and having visited the Mandalay Palace as well as Inwa (now just a little sleepy semi-rural city), I enjoyed reading this nice book. I do wish, however, that the story involving Sue and the modern times were a bit more substantial. The story as it appears to me is 90% historical and just 10% fiction. I just wish that the fiction component could have been broader and more engaging. If it were so, I would have rated the book 5-stars.
The story is set in Mandalay (and Ava, the older name for present day Inwa in the Mandalay region of Myanmar) during the last days of the reign of King Mindon. King Mindon ruled Myanmar during 1853-1878. At that time, the British had already annexed Lower Myanmar (south of Mandalay) and had their eyes set on Ava.
The story begins with Sue Henderson receiving a message in present day London from her ancestor who had died 100 years before to claim an old trunk that contained several documents and a beautiful Jade Buddha. Sue finds a picture of her great grandmother in the trunk dressed in traditional Myanmar dress and notes that she does have a striking resemblance to her great grandmother. The story itself unfolds from the writings of Sue's great grandmother Lindy Chesterton.
Lindy is partly of Royal Myanmar blood with her father a British Sea Captain and her mother a Myanmar Royal Lady. Many of the other characters are real persons like King Mindon himself, Queen Hsinbyumashin, their daughter Supayalat and son-in-law Thibaw. Cousins Lindy and Supayalat grow up together in the Mandalay Palace until Lindy is sent to study in Scotland for a period of ten years. On her return, Lindy finds Ava in a situation of deep turmoil. King Mindon is old and has not announced a successor. Queen Hsinbyumashin who had been a dominating figure during this period plans that her son-in-law Thibaw succeeds the throne. History does tell us that Thibaw does succeed King Mindon after a massacre of nearly all the other princes, their wives and children inside the Mandalay palace prior to the coronation.
The massacre sets a series of events in motion as the British declare war and capture the Mandalay region. King Mindon and Queen Supayalat are exiled to Ratnagiri in India. Much of the really short book is just factual history retold by Lindy through her writings to her future descendant (that turns out to be Sue). How does the story pan out in respect of the Jade Buddha? What is it with the "Ruby for the Queen"? I recommend that you read the book!
Currently living in Mandalay, having read a little of the history of the times in Mandalay, and having visited the Mandalay Palace as well as Inwa (now just a little sleepy semi-rural city), I enjoyed reading this nice book. I do wish, however, that the story involving Sue and the modern times were a bit more substantial. The story as it appears to me is 90% historical and just 10% fiction. I just wish that the fiction component could have been broader and more engaging. If it were so, I would have rated the book 5-stars.
January 3, 2016
It was on a flight from Yangon-Bangkok-Bangalore that I picked up the book Mandalay: A Ruby for the Queen for being the first book to read in 2016. And what a way to begin the New Year!
The story is set in Mandalay (and Ava, the older name for present day Inwa in the Mandalay region of Myanmar) during the last days of the reign of King Mindon. King Mindon ruled Myanmar during 1853-1878. At that time, the British had already annexed Lower Myanmar (south of Mandalay) and had their eyes set on Ava.
The story begins with Sue Henderson receiving a message in present day London from her ancestor who had died 100 years before to claim an old trunk that contained several documents and a beautiful Jade Buddha. Sue finds a picture of her great grandmother in the trunk dressed in traditional Myanmar dress and notes that she does have a striking resemblance to her great grandmother. The story itself unfolds from the writings of Sue's great grandmother Lindy Chesterton.
Lindy is partly of Royal Myanmar blood with her father a British Sea Captain and her mother a Myanmar Royal Lady. Many of the other characters are real persons like King Mindon himself, Queen Hsinbyumashin, their daughter Supayalat and son-in-law Thibaw. Cousins Lindy and Supayalat grow up together in the Mandalay Palace until Lindy is sent to study in Scotland for a period of ten years. On her return, Lindy finds Ava in a situation of deep turmoil. King Mindon is old and has not announced a successor. Queen Hsinbyumashin who had been a dominating figure during this period plans that her son-in-law Thibaw succeeds the throne. History does tell us that Thibaw does succeed King Mindon after a massacre of nearly all the other princes, their wives and children inside the Mandalay palace prior to the coronation.
The massacre sets a series of events in motion as the British declare war and capture the Mandalay region. King Mindon and Queen Supayalat are exiled to Ratnagiri in India. Much of the really short book is just factual history retold by Lindy through her writings to her future descendant (that turns out to be Sue). How does the story pan out in respect of the Jade Buddha? What is it with the "Ruby for the Queen"? I recommend that you read the book!
Currently living in Mandalay, having read a little of the history of the times in Mandalay, and having visited the Mandalay Palace as well as Inwa (now just a little sleepy semi-rural city), I enjoyed reading this nice book. I do wish, however, that the story involving Sue and the modern times were a bit more substantial. The story as it appears to me is 90% historical and just 10% fiction. I just wish that the fiction component could have been broader and more engaging. If it were so, I would have rated the book 5-stars.
The story is set in Mandalay (and Ava, the older name for present day Inwa in the Mandalay region of Myanmar) during the last days of the reign of King Mindon. King Mindon ruled Myanmar during 1853-1878. At that time, the British had already annexed Lower Myanmar (south of Mandalay) and had their eyes set on Ava.
The story begins with Sue Henderson receiving a message in present day London from her ancestor who had died 100 years before to claim an old trunk that contained several documents and a beautiful Jade Buddha. Sue finds a picture of her great grandmother in the trunk dressed in traditional Myanmar dress and notes that she does have a striking resemblance to her great grandmother. The story itself unfolds from the writings of Sue's great grandmother Lindy Chesterton.
Lindy is partly of Royal Myanmar blood with her father a British Sea Captain and her mother a Myanmar Royal Lady. Many of the other characters are real persons like King Mindon himself, Queen Hsinbyumashin, their daughter Supayalat and son-in-law Thibaw. Cousins Lindy and Supayalat grow up together in the Mandalay Palace until Lindy is sent to study in Scotland for a period of ten years. On her return, Lindy finds Ava in a situation of deep turmoil. King Mindon is old and has not announced a successor. Queen Hsinbyumashin who had been a dominating figure during this period plans that her son-in-law Thibaw succeeds the throne. History does tell us that Thibaw does succeed King Mindon after a massacre of nearly all the other princes, their wives and children inside the Mandalay palace prior to the coronation.
The massacre sets a series of events in motion as the British declare war and capture the Mandalay region. King Mindon and Queen Supayalat are exiled to Ratnagiri in India. Much of the really short book is just factual history retold by Lindy through her writings to her future descendant (that turns out to be Sue). How does the story pan out in respect of the Jade Buddha? What is it with the "Ruby for the Queen"? I recommend that you read the book!
Currently living in Mandalay, having read a little of the history of the times in Mandalay, and having visited the Mandalay Palace as well as Inwa (now just a little sleepy semi-rural city), I enjoyed reading this nice book. I do wish, however, that the story involving Sue and the modern times were a bit more substantial. The story as it appears to me is 90% historical and just 10% fiction. I just wish that the fiction component could have been broader and more engaging. If it were so, I would have rated the book 5-stars.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews