Having been born in 1973 and grown up in Australia, I’ve never really known that much about Cuba. From film and television I knew that smoking Cuban cigars was naughty because the U.S. had a trade embargo with them and any country that wanted to be friends with the U.S. respected that. From the same sources, I knew that there were many Cubans in Florida and that the media reported them to be mostly rabidly anti-Castro. I knew that people routinely risked the seas to escape from Cuba in a similar way that my best friend in high school had escaped from Communist Poland. But at the same time I was vaguely aware that perhaps once Castro had been a man of more democratic principles, loved by the Cubans before they came to fear that they may disappear at night never to be heard from again. After all, activists both trendy and genuine wore T-shirts with Castro’s once-partner’s face on it and Streisand listed Guevara as one of her father figures in the live version of “Poppa can you hear me” alongside Gandhi. The implication was that, as in so many places around the world, the U.S. had had some role to play in the making of their monster to the South.

The focus of Havana Nocturne is the mob in Cuba and their attempt to create their ultimate haven, within easy reach of everything that was good in America and without any thought for the Cuban people living in fear and poverty outside their Casino walls. T. J. English expertly, and necessarily, weaves the stories of the mob show more and the revolution together to create a thoroughly engrossing read that connects the dots so deliberately left unconnected for so many years. He leaves aside the demonization of any one of his true characters and, without pulling any punches, shows us flawed human beings and gives us greed, revenge and human failing as the ultimate culprits in the mess that is Cuba.

I’ll feel a lot more educated about the whole issue now as the U.S. begins to deal with a post-Castro Cuba. Whether this tiny country can recover from their decades of corruption, trade sanctions and U.S. meddling will be a test with international relevance. show less

I expected a fantasy action novel - certainly there is a war going on amongst the Spirits, Immortals and Demons on the celestial plane and leaking down to the Earth. You’d think that there would be plenty of material for the conflict that is required for an interesting story. You’d be wrong - there is simply no conflict at all in this book. There is action and fighting, certainly and it’s well written and keeps you glued (it was what made it possible for me to get through to page 478) but action is not conflict.

Plot-wise the action is mostly training for threats which come few and far between. When at last the real tests come and one of our characters is, of course, mortally wounded - there is always a way to heal or even return from Hell so any real concern for life and limb goes out the window fast. Anything that might possibly add a little conflict/interest/suspense to the story is handled by the author by making her protagonist … how can I put it… just so… ace! Other characters continually point out that Emma is "cold-blooded"* and able to take virtually anything without emotional effect. The heart of a story is the emotional journey taken by the protagonist - what is the point of a protagonist without emotion? I am truly baffled.

The closest our protagonist gets to conflict/potential for emotional growth (the whole point of a decent, let alone good, story) comes in the form of a spurious, bodice-ripper, Mills and Boon style show more love-upon-which-she-must-not-act romantic plot, which becomes the main plot of the book. Yet again the author removes the actual conflict by making the protagonist just too in lerve! Death is nothing if she can be with her man! URGH. She’s 28 for goodness sake and he’s several thousand years old but they act like teenagers (or, as every single character seems to get a chance to say multiple times "Fools" - isn’t it romantic to be foolish boys and girls, even at the expense of the children?)

You may have noted by now that I found this book and it's characters exceedingly annoying. I'm sure there will be people who love it but it needs to be marketed to them and put on the romance shelves, not the fantasy shelves. We are given so little of the celestial war that the Gods plotline becomes little more than an explanation of the romantic interest's extraordinary wealth. Similarly, the significance of the very promising, well written action scenes is reduced to an excuse for physical contact between the forbidden lovers and the occasional expression of deep concern and therefore lerve when someone is injured (which we know will be fixed in no time either by a little magic or because Emma is sooo extraordinary).

So, how does it fair as a romance novel? Probably very well judging by the novels which sell well (I had to produce many onto audio in my former life and so have read more than I'd have liked). The values in romance novels is almost always "anything for true lerve" and that is certainly the case here, both Emma and her romantic interest show the most appalling character not just in indulging in a nanny-widower relationship but even use the child as a "shield" for physical contact between the two - I won’t explain, it’s just.. yuck. To me, the romance between them has both the intensity and sense of longevity that a teenage crush has - Emma’s willingness to die for him is explained, many teenagers in love feel that strongly - but there is no sense of a foundation that would last - but, again, that's the kind of 'love' romance novels seem to go for and pretend to a "happily ever after"

To be fair, this novel may be suffering from "series-itis" - this is book one in a series called "Dark Heavens" and it may be that Chan has been asked by the publisher to pad her story out to make it a trilogy or whatever it will be. It is possible that Chan has a great story over all and it will eventually develop into something interesting beyond just a romance but I am not interested in finding out. show less

I have finally struggled through to the end of this book but I have to admit that at least the last 150 pages (yes that's close to half of it) was to find out if it would EVER get round to the point of the plot-line which is advertised on the back of the book. I have not read James Patterson's "Murder Club" books but if he really thinks that "Kuzneski's writing has raw power" and was referring to this book (which admittedly he may not have been), I'm not going to risk it. It is possible that the author has deliberately littered his pages with cliched phrases, derivative characters and clunky exposition because he thinks it appropriate for the "blockbuster" style he is trying to write but frankly that is an insult to both "blockbuster" writers and their audience.

I am no snob when it comes to novels - years producing audio books from all kinds of novels knocked any potential for that out of me. When I read a novel I read for the same reason I watch a film or a television series - to be immersed in a story. If the quality of the writing isn't perfect but the story is engaging then that's fine by me - goodness knows there are many "well written" or "literary" novels which will put you to sleep! Give me a good story over good grammar any day. Unfortunately, Sword of God gives you neither.

REVIEW
Overall Score: 17/60
Story: 2/10 - derivative
Structure: 4/10 - all over the place, too much left undone or unsatisfactorily tied up.
Dialogue: 3/10 - cliche but not unbelievable for show more the characters, particularly bad when used for exposition
Characters: 3/10 - stereotypes (and I don't mean archetypes, just stereotypes)
Descriptive style: 4/10 - cliched phrasing, lack of flow mostly due to badly inserted exposition
Exposition handling: 1/10 - clunky, incongruous, often resorts to straight lecturing, inconsistently breaks rules of POV in 3rd person intimate show less

Geisha of Gion is a prettily drawn insight into the Karyukai of Kyoto and life within the Iwasaki Okiya, where Mineko, born Tanaka Masako, began training at the age of five. Her memory and descriptions of kimono and the details of her arts are exquisite. I particularly appreciated that she does not shy away from using the proper Japanese terms and then interpreting them for us, rather than simply using English substitutes as one often finds in books edited by Americans for Americans. If you are looking for a book filled with Japanese culture then it certainly meets that criteria and I certainly appreciated that element of the book. However that was not, in the end, the element which I found most intriguing.

One of the reasons autobiography is it’s own category rather than being lumped in with non-fiction is not only to classify it as written by the subject of the book but also because classifying autobiography as non-fiction is problematic. No matter how well researched, the content will always be from the point of view of that one, intrinsically biased, person (indeed there is no real research requirement unless the author wishes to impose one upon themselves, legal clearance that is doesn’t defame anyone is all that is really required.) Sometimes the author’s bias or desire to impress a particular belief upon the reader is so glaring that it adds an element of fascination in itself. While neither “Memoirs of a Geisha” nor its author are never mentioned by name, show more Geisha of Gion is nevertheless heavily influenced by Golden’s work. It is clear that Iwasaki wishes to correct some of the impressions left by Golden particularly in two respects: the suggestion that a geisha is a high class sex worker and that Iwasaki’s father simply sold her to the okiya against her will.

The first issue is simply stated and backed up by, amongst other cultural experts, my Japanese teacher :) Prostitutes exist, Iwasaki informs us, but they are oiran (courtesan), not geisha(entertainer or artist.) The mizuage (or coming of age ceremony) for the two types of women is different, for both it occurs when the geisha first menstruates and at both her best clients receive small pink cakes with a tiny red nipple on top, representing a breast. The difference lies in that for the geisha it is simply a celebration of her coming into womanhood and parties are held and gifts received, only for the oiran is the girl’s virginity sold to the highest bidder. Geisha do not give sexual favours for their fees. Geisha often have boyfriends (who sometimes become husbands) but sexual liasons are carefully managed and outside of the professional requirements of a geisha. How much of Iwasaki’s story is sanitized in this respect is of little consequence.

The second impression Iwasaki is at pains to make is that of her father’s character as a loving father, sadly misunderstood by her four older sisters who were also sold to the okiya and to this day are still angry and or bitter to varying degrees. I found it heartbreaking to read as this woman now in her thirties and a mother herself insisted that at the age of five she and she alone made the decision to go to the okiya to become a geisha like her sisters. Again and again she describes how her father resisted the okiya ‘mother’ when she requested their youngest daughter come into her service. She describes how when she first agreed to go to the okiya it was simply some kind of trial which she could have ended at any time - a special arrangement because the okiya mother was so desperate to have this child as her heir because she was so very beautiful. I have no doubt that Iwasaki believes everything she has written in this book but I simply don’t believe that her father had not entered into a similar contract as he did with his other four girls, nor do I believe her protestations that he was so concerned for her welfare. She describes how, at eight years of age, she went to court to be adopted by the the okiya mother (as she had to be to become the heir to the okiya) and took the Iwasaki name. The judge asked her to say which family she chose to belong to - after choosing the okiya, she promptly threw up. Clearly she was desperately torn by the decision and yet she wants desperately for us believe that her father was a loving man, or at least that her father loved her if not her sisters.

Of course if his situation was such that he needed to sell his daughters into service then that is sad but understandable and perhaps he was a loving man - unfortunately Iwasaki presents an enormous paradox regarding this. She explains fairly well the reason that he was forced to sell his first daughters (very much against their will to this day) and yet she is also keen to impress upon us how successful her parents were as artists, particularly her father - revered and also … making very good money, certainly at least by the time the third fourth and fifth daughters are sent. Nor does it explain why the couple went on to have so many more children - eleven in all (her mother is described as having a weak constitution) five of girls sent to the okiya. But Iwasaki does not present her father as an angel - she reveals man prone to sudden violence when angered but who treated her as special and mostly she was spared the violence. In fact she seems disturbingly proud when describing violence or raging committed by her father in defence of her after her brothers and sisters had teased her in some way or, in one shocking case, when a chicken has pecked at her and has its neck wrung in front of her when she is three years old. Clearly she cannot deny the violence and neglect her father displayed towards his children but she is determined to believe that she had a special place in his heart.

The overwhelming sense that she is special was no doubt encouraged by her father and by her being given the place of atotori - or heir to the okiya - at such a young age (she was wanted by the okiya because she was so breathtakingly beautiful even as a three year old doncha-know?) and narcissism permeates every line of this book. One is left with the impression of an extremely sad little girl who, desperate for attention, love and a place in the world, latched on to her place in the okiya and became, quite simply, a spoiled brat. This manifested in what was no doubt an extraordinary dedication to her arts but a failure to mature socially and emotionally. Iwasaki displays the same sudden explosive temper as her father and his mother before him had, sometimes in legitimate defence of herself but sometimes far too violent for the situation or sheer tantrums (such as the violent destruction of the fur coat of the wife of a man with whom she had an affair for many many years) and she describes each one with the same utter conviction that she was justified. When she describes the cattiness and cruelty of the other geisha, first within the okiya and later, seemingly, across the karyukai of the entire country, she puts every incidence down to pure jealousy and protests that she siply didn’t understand it. I’m sure jealousy was a large part of it and any woman knows how bitchy and cruel women can be to each other but the character displayed by the author is certainly one which would not endear itself to other girls and I have no doubt she did not help the situation.

Geisha of Gion is definitely worth the read, not only for the insight into this area of japanese culture but as a fascinating study of the effect this odd situation in which she suffers being abandoned by her birth parents but is sold into a life in which she is paid deference at an age when she has no abiility to understand it as anything other than that she is superior to all around her. There are many stories of being sold into service and being treated poorly (as were her sisters) but this is a different psychological story and a new one for me. It would be fascinating to read the accounts of other sisters - particularly Kuniko who lived in the okiya with Mineko. Kuniko did not have the potential (read beauty) as a geisha and so was essentially a maid but she had intelligence and so became an integral part of the behind the scenes in the okiya and, it seems, a much more grounded personality than her sister and would have quite the tale to tell. show less