Trashy romance with a Japanese twist

• Book: The Gilded Fan
• Location: Amsterdam, Nagasaki, Plymouth
• Author: Christina Courtenay

A fun beach or rainy day romance novel with usual set pieces: beautiful heroine, handsome hero, will they or won’t they get together?

However, I don’t think this book can compare with other Japanese historical novels such as ‘The Ginger Tree’ or ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. Half the book is set in Japan or on the voyage to England, which adds an interesting twist, but it is still very much of its genre of a straightforward ‘romance’ novel. If I were to be picky I’d say that the dialogue is stiff and amusingly inauthentic in places, the story quite contrived.

There are some interesting historical details which reveal a lot of research by the author, but from the writing I didn’t get immersed in the sense of time and place that I have with other historical novels.

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