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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Very romantic novella set 25 years before the main events of the rest of the Pingkang Li Mysteries series. The heroine is an indentured musician who is trying to buy her freedom with a stolen pillow book, and the hero is a sincere hardworking scholar who just wants to pass his exams and do his people proud.
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A great fun quick novella featuring a mostly cheerful country scholar and a mostly sceptical song girl. I loved how they both recognised their respective struggles and found joy. I entered immediately into the Tang dynasty world and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
Capturing the Silken Thief is a historical romance novella that takes place in 823 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty in China. I wasn't sure how I would like the novella format. I like historical romance but I was sort of unsure whether or not you could tell a good story, let alone a good romance (love takes time usually!), in such a short amount of space. But I really like Jeannie Lin's writing and thoroughly enjoyed The Dragon and The Pearl so I tried to have faith. And you know what, it all turned out just fine!
I really enjoyed this book. It's a quick read with it being a novella and all. I was impressed with how much detail Lin was able to get in with so little space to work with. Jia is a great character. She's trying to buy her freedom, which was a great cost for a woman at that time. She's brave and cunning. She goes to steal a book of poems of an infamous courtesan from Luo Cheng, a gentleman studying to take a test to become a government official (a process that I found sort of fascinating). Things don't turn out the way Jia plans and she and Luo Cheng end up falling for each other hard and quickly. Hotness and passion ensues!
One reason that I love historical fiction of all stripes is that the books have the ability to take you to someplace that you've never been before. Lin gives the reader a great sense of what life was like during the Tang Dynasty. You can definitely imagine that you're there.
Bottom line: this is a perfect book for those wanting to break their fear of novellas. Great stories really can be told in fewer words.
I really enjoyed this book. It's a quick read with it being a novella and all. I was impressed with how much detail Lin was able to get in with so little space to work with. Jia is a great character. She's trying to buy her freedom, which was a great cost for a woman at that time. She's brave and cunning. She goes to steal a book of poems of an infamous courtesan from Luo Cheng, a gentleman studying to take a test to become a government official (a process that I found sort of fascinating). Things don't turn out the way Jia plans and she and Luo Cheng end up falling for each other hard and quickly. Hotness and passion ensues!
One reason that I love historical fiction of all stripes is that the books have the ability to take you to someplace that you've never been before. Lin gives the reader a great sense of what life was like during the Tang Dynasty. You can definitely imagine that you're there.
Bottom line: this is a perfect book for those wanting to break their fear of novellas. Great stories really can be told in fewer words.
There’s a line in Jeannie Lin’s novella, Capturing the Silken Thief, that evokes the effortless, lyrical beauty of her tale. A man - a scholar - and a woman - a musician - meet at night. Ms. Lin writes, “The moon was high and round, with that faint harvest gleam that marked it as a night for recitations of poetry.” The line, like the novella, is self-contained and, at the same time, inviting. A reader wonders what might happen under such a moon and longs to read more.
The novella so often disappoints. Either its story is too thin or its premise unfulfilled. Ms. Lin’s lovely little work has neither limitation. In 75 pages, she presents a Chinese romance, a love story told in its entirety, from first glance to final promise. Her lovers are limned clearly — we know their past, present, and future. Her heroine, the pipa player Jia, is as real a woman as I’ve ever encountered in the pages of historical romance. She’s twenty-three, deeply in debt, smart, talented, and proud. She’s a realist who dreams, schemes, and works for a future where she could live a simple life she’d be able to control. The hero, Cheng, is just as wonderfully rendered. He’s from a poor rural family, able to study in the capital only because of the largess of a local magistrate back home. Like Jia, he is determined to better himself. Together, the two are achingly perfect.
They meet because Jia has paid the last of her coin to have street thugs rob Cheng. She has mistaken him for another scholar, a wealthy rude bore, who stole a valuable book from the Lotus Pavilion, the most luxurious gathering place in the city. Jia wants this book so that she may sell it and buy her financial freedom. The street thugs steal Cheng’s books and work, valuable beyond measure to him, and bring them to Jia. Jia realizes Cheng doesn’t have what she seeks; she finds him and offers him back his books for his help in finding the volume she desires. Cheng sees in Jia — whom he thinks is named Rose — something he desires. He agrees to help her, eager to pursue the passion he feels spark between them.
click here at All About Romance to read the rest of the review
The novella so often disappoints. Either its story is too thin or its premise unfulfilled. Ms. Lin’s lovely little work has neither limitation. In 75 pages, she presents a Chinese romance, a love story told in its entirety, from first glance to final promise. Her lovers are limned clearly — we know their past, present, and future. Her heroine, the pipa player Jia, is as real a woman as I’ve ever encountered in the pages of historical romance. She’s twenty-three, deeply in debt, smart, talented, and proud. She’s a realist who dreams, schemes, and works for a future where she could live a simple life she’d be able to control. The hero, Cheng, is just as wonderfully rendered. He’s from a poor rural family, able to study in the capital only because of the largess of a local magistrate back home. Like Jia, he is determined to better himself. Together, the two are achingly perfect.
They meet because Jia has paid the last of her coin to have street thugs rob Cheng. She has mistaken him for another scholar, a wealthy rude bore, who stole a valuable book from the Lotus Pavilion, the most luxurious gathering place in the city. Jia wants this book so that she may sell it and buy her financial freedom. The street thugs steal Cheng’s books and work, valuable beyond measure to him, and bring them to Jia. Jia realizes Cheng doesn’t have what she seeks; she finds him and offers him back his books for his help in finding the volume she desires. Cheng sees in Jia — whom he thinks is named Rose — something he desires. He agrees to help her, eager to pursue the passion he feels spark between them.
click here at All About Romance to read the rest of the review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
More small crime caper than mystery, this first novella in Jeannie Lin’s Lotus House Mysteries (also called the Pingkang Li Mysteries) set in Tang Dynasty China first pits indentured musician Jia against scholar Luo Cheng. Quite quickly, it also sees them teaming up as they each have a goal vital to improving their life, and in Cheng’s case the status of his family. These goals mean they are playing for high personal stakes and it is Jia’s goal of freedom and independence that leads to further friction between them after they have given in to mutual attraction.
This is a quick read and an open door romance. Fast paced and adventurous, it introduces the Lotus Palace and I do hope this means that Jia and Cheng might make a reappearance. These are characters whose story ends just as the reader’s sympathies are engaged and I do find myself wondering at how their lives would move forward. But perhaps I should just chalk that up to the storyteller’s skills.
This was a quick and entertaining read.
Despite its shortness, Jeannie Lin managed to develop an engaging plot, develop a believable attraction and eventual romance between Jia and Luo Cheng, and deliver a satisfying ending.
I can't really complain about how short this was because she managed to write a complete story in just a few pages.
But also due to its shortness, it lacked the convoluted plot, full of surprises and plot twists, that Jeannie Lin has so masterfully written and used us to.
I guess I could have given this more stars, but since I went in expecting so much more I may have been a bit too harsh rating it.
Still, it's a great short and I definitely recommend it!
Author recommended on either Dear Author or SBTB for her writing and historical settings in ancient China. Nice to get a little history and culture with your romance! Recommended.
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This review is from: Capturing the Silken Thief (Kindle Edition)
Capturing a Silken Thief by Jeannie Lin was a quick, fun read. Set in Changan during the Tang Dynasty in China 823 A.D, we follow the heroine, Yang Jia-jing, and the hero, Luo Cheng through about 56 pages of a richly detailed novella.
Jia is a young song girl who plays the Pipa while Luo Cheng is a farmer boy who has studied for the Imperial Exams, which he has already failed once. If he fails again, he will be forced to return home in shame.
Jia mistakes Cheng for a scholar in possession of a rare treasured book. Eventually, the end up searching for the book together. It's a brief romp through Changan, but full of fun and adventure.
More happens, but you'll have to read Capturing the Silken Thief for yourself to find out what, and how the story ends.
I enjoyed reading this short novella immensely, and it was my first time reading Jeannie Lin. I'll be reading more of her books for sure. (Come back next week to find out what I thought of Jeannie Lin's book, "butterfly Swords".
I do suggest this if you want a quick read and haven't read Ms. Lin before.