The Teahouse Fire, Ellis Avery

Title: The Teahouse Fire
Author: Ellis Avery
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 480
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: In 1865, nine-year-old Aurelia Caillard is taken from New York to Japan by her missionary uncle Charles while her ailing mother dies at home. Charles soon vanishes in a fire (not the one of the title), leaving Aurelia orphaned and alone in Kyoto. She is taken in by Yukako, the teenage daughter of the Shin family, master teachers of temae, or tea ceremony. Aurelia, narrating as an elderly woman, tells of living as Yukako's servant and younger sister, and how what begins as grateful puppy love for Yukako matures over years into a deeply painful unrequited obsession. Against a backdrop of a convulsively Westernizing Japan, Avery brings the conflicts of modernization into the teahouse, and into Aurelia and Yukako's beds, where jealousy over lovers threatens to tear them apart.
~ Publishers Weekly

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Geisha, A Life, Mineko Iwasaki

Title: Geisha, A Life
Author: Mineko Iwasaki
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: Now in her 50s, Mineko Iwasaki was one of the most famed geishas of her generation (and the chief informant for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha). Her ascent was difficult, not merely because of the hard, endless training she had to undergo--learning how to speak a hyper-elevated dialect of Japanese and how to sing and dance gracefully while wearing a 44-pound kimono atop six-inch wooden sandals--but also because many of the elaborate, self-effacing rules of the art went against her grain. Revealing the secrets of the geisha's "art of perfection," this graceful memoir documents a disappearing world.  ~ Amazon.com

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The Black Swan, Mercedes Lackey

Title: The Black Swan
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: DAW
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: Baron Eric von Rothbart, a powerful sorcerer, hunts down women who have betrayed men and transforms them into swans who can only resume their true forms by moonlight. His lonely daughter Odile, who watches the flock and studies spells, longs vainly for his approval. One day von Rothbart tells Odette, the swan princess, that she can break the spell by winning and holding a man's faithful love for one month. He's even chosen a candidate, Prince Siegfried. Unfortunately, the prince is a womanizing hedonist. Should Odette succeed nevertheless, von Rothbart secretly plans a trap for them and the prince's ambitious mother, Queen Clothilde, who schemes to rule in her own right. But he must use Odile, who has befriended Odette and is no longer her father's puppet. ~ Amazon.com

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Princess Sultana's Circle, Jean Sasson

Title: Princess Sultana's Circle
Author: Jean Sasson
Publisher: Windsor-Brooke Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 265
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: Sasson and Saudi Princess Sultana follow their earlier accounts of social oppression of women in Arabia with one that focuses on the Saudi royal family and how, despite its wealth and relative freedom from social conventions, its men continue to oppress women. Specific instances include the forced marriage of a young niece to a brutal older man and a cousin's harem of sex slaves. 
~ Booklist

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q & A, Keith R.A. DeCandido

Title: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q & A
Author: Keith R.A. DeCandido
Publisher: Pocket Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: On her first mission, the Enterprise was sent to Farpoint Station. A simple, straightforward investigation. Perfect for a crew that had never served together. Then there was Q. An omnipotent lifeform that seemed bent on placing obstacle after obstacle in the ship's -- and in particular in Picard's -- way. And it hadn't ended with that first mission. When he was least expected, Q would appear. Pushing, prodding, testing. At times needling captain and crew with seemingly silly, pointless, and maddening trifles. Then it would turn all too serious, and the survival of Picard's crew was in Q's hands. Why was it today that Picard was remembering the day he took command of the Enterprise-D? Now he commanded a new ship, the Enterprise-E. His crew was different. There was nothing about Gorsach that in the least resembled Farpoint. But Picard couldn't shake the feeling that something all too familiar was going on. All too awful. All too Q.   ~ Amazon.com
 
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When the Duke Returns, Eloisa James

Title: When the Duke Returns
Author: Eloisa James
Publisher: Avon
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: Married by proxy as a child, Lady Isidore has spent years fending off lecherous men in every European court while waiting to meet her husband. She's determined to accept him, no matter how unattractive the duke turns out to be. When she finally lures Simeon Jermyn back to London, his dark handsomeness puts Isidore's worst fears to rest—until disaster strikes. The duke demands an annulment. Forsaking his adventuresome past, Simeon has returned to London ready to embrace the life of a proper duke, only to find that his supposed wife is too ravishing, too headstrong, and too sensual to be the docile duchess he has in mind. But Isidore will not give up her claim to the title—or him—without a fight.  ~ Amazon.com

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Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride, Helen Halstead

Title: Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride
Author: Helen Halstead
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Times Read: 1
Rank:

Summary: When Elizabeth Bennett marries the brooding, passionate Mr. Darcy, she is thrown into the exciting world of London society. She makes a powerful friend in the Marchioness of Englebury but the jealousy among her ladyship's circle threatens to destroy Elizabeth's happiness. Elizabeth is drawn into a powerful clique for whom intrigue is the stuff of life and rivalry the motive, and her success, it seems, can only come at the expense of good relations with her husband. This novel also continues the stories of other favorite Pride and Prejudice characters including Georgiana Darcy and Kitty Bennett, each of whom have amusing adventures of their own.  ~ Amazon.com

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