My Beautiful Enemy
By Sherry Thomas
Publisher: Berkley
Daughter of a Chinese courtesan and an Englishman who dies
before his daughter is born, Catherine Blade grows up in China as Ying-ying,
loved and sheltered but knowing that she is not the daughter her beautiful,
graceful mother wants her to be. After her mother’s death, she and her amah are
given quarters in the household of her mother’s protector, a powerful and
distant figure whom Ying-ying addresses as Da-ren, or “great personage.”
Anchored by her amah, who trains her in martial arts, and an Englishman hired
to tutor De-ran’s sons, who teaches her English and tells her about the land of
her father, Ying-ying is devastated when both her mentors are killed the same
night. The events of that night also make it necessary for Ying-ying to
disguise herself as a male and adopt the life of a vagabond, trying always to
elude the enemy who wants to destroy her.
On her journey, Ying-ying meets a man known to her only by
the name she assigns him, the Persian. The two travel together, gradually
learning more about each other while at the same time maintaining their
secrets. After the Persian saves Ying-ying from bandits, he confesses that he
has known from the beginning that she is female. The two become lovers, but
just as Ying-ying begins to believe she has found someone who will never leave
her, they separately discover facts about one another’s allegiances and part.
Eight years later, Ying-ying in her English identity as
Catherine Blade arrives in England on a mission. Her reform-minded stepfather
is in need of funds and has charged her with locating a pair of legendary jade
tablets that reveal the location of great treasure hidden long ago by Buddhist
monks. One of the first people she meets in England is Captain Leighton Atwood,
her Persian whom she thought was dead. The connection between the two of them
is as potent as ever and the relationship as complicated. Leighton, having
finally given up on finding the girl from Chinese Turkestan, has acquired a
fiancée, but neither Ying-ying’s treachery, his loyalty to his fiancée, nor his
patriotism is enough to interfere with his desire to protect Catherine. Danger
and betrayal threaten Catherine at every turn. It will take the combined
strength and skill of Catherine and Leighton to defeat their enemies, known and
unknown, and a willingness to trust one another to finally achieve their HEA.
Sherry Thomas gives readers an adventure-packed novel that
interweaves a cross-cultural romance and a tale of political intrigue and
danger. The story alternates between Chinese Turkestan in 1883 and England in
1891. In an interview with Madeline Hunter that appeared in USAToday’s Happily Ever After, Thomas
said, “And all you need to know about My Beautiful Enemy is that it is Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Downton Abbey.” That description gives
readers a sense of the book, but no description or summary can do justice to
its complexity and emotional power.
With some authors who set stories in alternating times, I
quickly grow confused and frustrated, but Thomas deftly juxtaposes past and
present with clarity and grace. There
was never a moment in this novel when I was confused about the action and never
a moment when I was not eagerly awaiting the next scene. “Kick-ass heroine” has
become a cliché of the genre, but in the case of Catherine, it is literally
accurate. However, Catherine is much more than a deadly practitioner of the
martial arts. Her strength of character equals her physical strength, and yet
she also has vulnerabilities. Leighton too is a survivor, one with a nurturer’s
heart and a keen intelligence, a combination sure to leave readers sighing.
As always with Sherry Thomas, one of the joys of reading her
novel is the prose. Whether it is in the humor of a sentence such as “The interlocking gears of a wedding, like those of a war machine,
ground on inexorably” or the poignancy of a sentence stunning in its simplicity
(“And then the silence became that of his absence, a silence that she had come
to know all too well), each line is crafted with precision and elegance. And
the first love scene could serve as a textbook to teach how to use the details
of such a scene to reveal the characters and their unique relationship. “He
caressed her as if the night were infinite, and every square inch of her skin deserved
its own hour of worship” is a sentence specific to the experience of these
particular lovers.
My Beautiful Enemy
is different—different from Thomas’s earlier romance fiction and different from
other romance novels—but it has the richly layered characters, the compelling
story, and the distinctive voice that readers expect from this author. Thomas
has written a prequel “The Hidden Blade” that gives the backstory of Ying-ying
and Leighton. Although it is not necessary to read the prequel to appreciate My Beautiful Enemy, doing so will make
reading the novel a richer experience. I give both my highest recommendation.
~Janga
I haven't read Sherry Thomas in a long time, but the premise of this sounds very rewarding. Have sought it out. :)
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds amazing and it's like nothing I've ever read before. I'll make sure to pick it up in the near future. Thank you for the excellent review!
ReplyDeleteI've not read her but since I enjoy variety this sounds very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI love Sherry Thomas books she will keep you on the edge of your seat
ReplyDeleteI hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. I'm not really a big fan of high adventure novels, but a few authors make it work for me. Sherry Thomas is one of them. Others are Mary Jo Putney and Eileen Dreyer.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an intriguing and wonderful book. I enjoy and appreciate a broader look at society which includes the wonderfully wide variety of cultures and situations in the world. She appears to have don just that, providing a rich flavor to the story.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review and letting us know about this story. Luckily, I already have THE HIDDEN BLADE on my Kindle. It is now much higher on my TBR list.