Current mood:	blah
Current music:	Kate Alexa-Somebody Out There
Entry tags:	historical fiction book review japan les

Gone with the tsunami
 

The Last Concubine by Lesley Downer

I read many favourable reviews about this book.

A Japanese “Gone with the wind” With a gorgeous cover. Can you imagine I was so eager to get this book in my hands?

The plot boils down to this: Sachi is a peasant girl who is adopted by a princess.The princess is going to be the shoguns wife. Sachi grows up in the Edo castle and learns the strict protocol of the castle and using a halberd. The heroine becomes noticed shogun and becomes his concubine. The shogun unexpectedly dies,adding to the unrest of the land.

War breaks out and Sachi and a handmaiden flees the castle,Sachi posing as the princess.They met up with some ronin samurai and decide to travel with them. After this I lost grip on the plot….except for the love story between Sachi and one of the samurai.

Someone hand this author a synonym book!There is only so much repeating of words one can endure. For example someones hair is described as “bushy” throughout the whole book and everyone seems to have “plump” lips.And the plot structure is lacking,feeling sketchy and not that thought out.

 Fascinating history but it reads more like a factual novel than a novel sometimes.

And even if I found the love story touching sometimes..it didn’t have that extra oomph! Like in the real “Gone with the wind”

Readable but sadly not a keeper.