Too much key, not enough novel

Susanna Moore’s fifth novel opens on board the Jupiter in February 1836, with the ladies — make that a capital ‘L’ — Eleanor and Harriet, together with their brother Henry (the incoming governor-general), en route to India. Storms rattle the halyards, rats scrabble at the sodden travelling library and Eleanor, our raisonneur, is somewhat put out to find her own excrement floating back and forth through the flooded cabin.