Lately, I found myself bored with all the historical romances featuring dukes and ingenues. Therefore, I was looking forward to a book with a vastly different setting. Only if it wasn't such a bore.
To be fair, the book is well-written and well researched, with the bustling pleasure district and the ancient China setting practically jumping out of the pages. What I didn't buy, though, was the central romance between a maidservant and a young aristocrat. Somehow, she managed to catch his eye by not reacting to his advances, and he was smitten. What I tend to look upon as practicality on her part suddenly becomes this huge allure in his eyes. And while her background is tragic, it is no more tragic than any other concubines or servants who ended up toiling their life away in the pleasure district. I simply don't think that she exhibited enough personality to elicit such devotion.
And that ending...I've read reviews by reviewers who thought that the author found a clever and believable way for Yue-Ying and Bai Huang to get their HEA, but I disagree. In ancient China, the difference in their stations in life would have been too great an obstacle to overcome without someone making a sacrifice. The kind of ending where they both get what they want without giving up something...it is just no believable.
To be fair, the book is well-written and well researched, with the bustling pleasure district and the ancient China setting practically jumping out of the pages. What I didn't buy, though, was the central romance between a maidservant and a young aristocrat. Somehow, she managed to catch his eye by not reacting to his advances, and he was smitten. What I tend to look upon as practicality on her part suddenly becomes this huge allure in his eyes. And while her background is tragic, it is no more tragic than any other concubines or servants who ended up toiling their life away in the pleasure district. I simply don't think that she exhibited enough personality to elicit such devotion.
And that ending...I've read reviews by reviewers who thought that the author found a clever and believable way for Yue-Ying and Bai Huang to get their HEA, but I disagree. In ancient China, the difference in their stations in life would have been too great an obstacle to overcome without someone making a sacrifice. The kind of ending where they both get what they want without giving up something...it is just no believable.
