A ravishing epic. An adventure story. A breathtaking romance.

I almost feel guilty... I enjoyed this book way too much. It's absolutely beautiful, but because I'm a bit of a lit snob, it was hard for me to get past this book's trashy cover. Well, not quite trashy, but you know what I mean. This isn't hard literature. But by God it's gorgeous.

This has nothing to do with anything... but why is the book's title The Russian Concubine? Our heroine is 16, and in love for the first time... certainly not a concubine. The love scenes are so sweet.

Anyways... definitely a guilty pleasure. ( )

I'm not in a mad rush to pick up the sequel, but this book was good and I plan to read more from this author. ( )

A strong novel about 1920's Junchow, in Northern China, the foreigners who live in the the International Settlement, a conglomeration of Russian, British, Italian, American and French citizens. They are surrounded by starving, diseased, poor Chinese who detest the comfortable Fanqui, foreign devils, who have taken so much from them, poisoned them with opium and treat them like trash.

Valentina and Lydia, Russian mother and daughter, are smart, resourceful, poor and lucky to be alive. Valentina is both beautiful and an amazingly gifted piano player, while Lydia is a good student in Theo Willoughby's school. It is Lydia who steals to make sure they can pay rent and eat. She nearly gets killed running down an alley but is saved by Chang An Lo. They have nothing in common except the ability to speak English, but develop a bond that strengthens with time.

The novel describes the poverty, the abuse of women, the corruption, the politics between Chiang Kai Shek supporters and those like Chang An Lo who believe communism is the only way China can modernize and move forward, the murders in detail.

A vibrant, dramatic novel and a very good read.

I am so glad I have finally finished this book. I bought it on a whim, thinking that the look into pre-communist China would be fascinating and the love story would be interesting, but that's where I should have read through a few pages first.

The characters are deep and descriptions of them, as several reviewers say in their reviews, are well-drawn. Valentina especially is a tragic personage and along with Andrew one of the two believable main characters of this story.

Otherwise, the almost-fantasy relationship between Lydia, Valentina's daughter and the young Chang An Lo is just that: a fantasy. A crazy mixed-up ideal of a 16 year old redhead in the slums of China who wanders the street as a thief, and Chang An Lo, an idealistic young Communist who lives in the slums and sees the promises of equality as preached by Mao. He is able to rescue her using his supreme martial arts skills, becomes deeply attached to her and her fox-like nature, and she to him because he can speak fluent English and she, too, is idealistic.

I read a lot of fantasy literature; I'm reading Diana Gabaldon's books, and for all their fantastical time traveling and sudden turns of fate and plot line, they are still more believable than this book. I don't doubt that there were horrible people like the Black Snakes who tortured their enemies, I don't doubt that there were horrible slums and destitute people who were forced to live there, I don't doubt that the British looked down on the Chinese as mindless heathens. What I do doubt is the veracity of a young girl wandering such streets without earlier repercussions; if she had been a thief at such a young age, surely she would have been kidnapped or assaulted long before the events in this book. Ditto for the Hollywood-style martial arts skills and the visionary nature of Chang. The story does not fit into the reality in which it is written.

As far as the title character, my take is that it was Valentina. It is especially revealed at the end when she educates her daughter about what it took to get her into the English school and why her mother wants her to get an education so that she can be independent and not dependent on the whims and performance possibilities that Valentina must live with. A concubine was a man's kept mistress despite what she herself might have wanted, and Valentina certainly fits that definition. ( )

What to say about this book that contains over 700 pages with so much information?
I liked it, that's for sure or I wouldn't have finished it. I liked Lidyja, but not so many of the other characters. Maybe that was the intention of the writer and did I fall into her 'trap', I don't know.

It was an intriguing book to read. A poor Russian woman and her daughter, trapped in the international 'city' within Junchow. Characters from her mother's past make life quite complicated, but also her adfiction to wodka and her desperate search for a man who can provide her and her daughter with all they need.

Lidyja is used to providing for the two of them and tries ro combine stealing and selling the stolen items to buy food and go to school. She's not happy at all with her mother's search for a new husband.

The story ends good. For all clarity: I hate forced happy endings where all ends are bent and twisted to fit in, no matter how illogical that is.
So, I'm not saying they all die, neither that they live happily ever after. I just like the end the way it is. ( )