I'm giving it a 4, though there are a couple gripes that send it dipping momentarily close to a 2 or 3. The 4-5 parts:I loved the backstory on the characters. She reminded me a bit of a LaVryle Spencer character meets Mary Poppins, which was a big prim, but not too bad. I liked her struggle to find work & Samuel's back story (and struggle with said back story). I loved that the Japanese rang true to an English reader with a smattering of Japanese. If there's nits to pick with that, I missed them - please see a Japanese person for identification of proper nits to pick. I loved the story/lore of the swords. I was amused that Dojun began calling Samuel "little baka" ("idiot" or "dumbass"). I think Samuel calls himself a beast in Japanese more than once. The other smatterings of Japanese are at least directly translatable if one feels an interest in doing so.I liked the story. I loved Lady Tess, though I kept seeing Cora Crawley (Downton Abbey) in her place & Cousin Violet as the cranky negative "happy people are in for a rude awakening!" biddy among Leda's friends.Overall I was happy to find myself dragged in to the book and amused that I was reluctant to put it down. "I don't want to SLEEP, I want to find out what HAPPENS" (like she's not going to end up with him in the end? Oh Cheryl...) "Argh, I don't want to get ready for work, I've got 25% left to go!"That is to say, for all my grumping, I liked it and I... alas...cannot deny it. I will probably read more of her books and I uh, own this one. So, take me with a grain of salt.SO...the grumping... because I can't NOT grump a bit after reading my first romance in god knows how many years. It'd be like Calamity Jane wearing a dress and going off the bottle in the same week. I'll make it a spoiler so you don't HAVE to see it. I don't want to ruin the fun escape for anyone, because honestly, I take it with a huge grain of salt & it was a fun escape - and the writing was surprisingly good.There are actually real spoilers in there. So, just a heads up.(view spoiler)[What made me laugh: A ninja appears in my bedroom in the middle of the night and I manage to knock his ass down... I just don't see myself, at that point, accepting instruction from stalker-housebreaker-potential-rapist guy on breathing and calming myself down. And either way, I'm thinking it will not work. "Imagine waterfalls,"really? Seriously guy, once that sewing machine does its thing, I'm going to clobber you senseless with a poker and hyperventilate the whole friggin time. I will breathe calmly when it - that being the ninja - is not moving anymore. Maybe. I might hyperventilate again after that, because, what if there are more? What made me grit my teeth:I got it early on that she called him "Sir" and "Dear Sir," it made sense as an employee, but after the initial virginity stealing debauchery (if you read that, did it not sound like she'd just given birth in that bedroom?), every time she said "Dear Sir," I thought "Because of him, you've been naked and bloody in front of your employer's mother and everyone out there thinks you're a baby abandoning whore. Seriously, use his first name."By the time it turned into "my very dear sir," the number of audible snorts from my side of the room had begun to catch my husband's attention. "Is this that Hawaiian ninja love story thing you're reading?"I cringed:I disliked that near the end she was turned into a dummy. I say "was turned" because she didn't get dumb, but circumstances made her seem dumb (I would say beforehand that she was "naive" but not dumb). Didn't like that. Despite her "primness" I liked Leda and felt she was an innocent. And yeah I saw the Leda and the swan parallel before it was pointed out. Samuel:The good:I didn't think someone could make "orphan godlike damaged English/American/psuedo-Japanese Hawaiian ninja carpenter shipping magnate guy" work but she did. That guy had so much stuff going on I'm surprised he didn't explode and implode simulat...wait, he sort of did. Nevermind.The "Oh, shit" scene was pretty good - there was a lot of honest emotion in that and his fear made it excellent (if sympathetically painful). That element of the story I felt was well done and the most empathetic storyline in there. He was a nice guy and a good kid who was badly abused - that, I could sympathize with, and it made me like him despite his Hamlet-to-Ophelia-esque shenanigans.The bad:You know what it's like to be used and abused and yet you rape your wife ("new house" scene)? That was messed up. I got that the first time you had no idea there (but yet, should have been smart enough to figure it out), but the "new house" scene was not anything really but rape. Conflicted or not, that was awful. I know, "at least he realized it" but then he goes right back to jerking her head around. But the funny:Probably would be good to verify your wife can swim before ordering her to jump overboard into shark infested water (and telling her to remember to breathe LOL).Speaking of the shark - we're not talking Ishmael's whale here, right? And, holy deus ex sharkina, I mean, it ATE the fabled war-causing sword (but not enough, obviously, since, well, look what happened to Pearl Harbor. This is why Tolkien opted to throw the ring in a volcano...be a "starfish" in that sh#t,Precious...)Back to neutral:Love his foster father's advice: when I found the woman I loved, I didn't lay another one. (hide spoiler)]
For a long time, this was in my top 10 list of romance novels. . On re-read, not so much, anymore. Basic Premise: The plot is mindboggling, and describing it makes the book look ridiculous.But hey, I try:Samuel Gerard is a former London child prostitute with major sexuality issues, who left that life to be raised in Hawaii, and subsequently became a ninja. Leda is a foundling in London, raised by a spinster gentlewoman, now on her own and working at a dress shop as sort of an etiquette expert and salesperson. The Queen's Jubilee brings these two people together, oh, and the ninja/child prostitution thing. Angst + thievery + shark zen + sewing machines used as defensive weapons ensue. Yeah, it's complicated. One of the hardest things I think for readers is the evil--or at least not entirely good--Mr. Miyagi type who trains Samuel up in ninja-ness. Kinsale doesn't really give any major clues away as to what his motives are, allowing the reader to buy in 100% that they are intended in a positive manner. He's not evil exactly, but neither is he a positive figure, and I think it's very hard for readers to make that emotional shift. Also, there's the issue of Leda's cluelessness about sex. I like it, but I'm not sure it's entirely possible for someone who is living in a bad part of town, working as a shopgirl, to be so completely naive. Kinsale does a great job of showing how incredibly precarious Leda's life is, and it was one of the things I liked best about this book, since I think it was probably quite true for many of the London working-class in this period. However, I'm a bit incredulous at everyone's easy ability to try and whore her out. She also chooses a truly original setting for her novel, one that I find both fascinating and romantic: Hawaii prior to the end of the monarchy. When I lived in Honolulu, I mostly disliked it, for a number of reasons, which I won't go into here. But I would have loved to live in Hawaii back then, and Kinsale really brings the culture and feeling of Hawaii to life--I could almost smell the plumeria. I would be lax not to make a comment on the Japanese stuff, since, well, it's what my degrees are in, and so I'll say that I think it's about 85% accurate although I mostly found it dull, and while I've referred to Samuel as a "ninja", he is not, really, not by the strictest historical definition of the word. I'm willing to let that go for this novel, along with the sometimes questionable translation of certain Japanese swear words but whatever. It wasn't the most interesting plot device for me.In the end, however, while I did enjoy Samuel as a character (his issues were handled a bit more delicately, than, say, Zsadist's in JR Ward's novels) and empathized with his neediness, fear, longing and desire for family, I was left wondering, "why Leda"? It almost seemed as though it was a "right time, right place" kind of relationship. Not a love for the ages, certainly. And that, in the end, was disappointing.
What do You think about The Shadow And The Star (2005)?
So, I was scared to read this because even I, who read these books like it's my job, balk at the idea of a romance novel about a ninja in Victorian England.I liked it though, really liked it, because it has excessive use of the word "sir" in endearing and romantical moments, and because the heroine is a bit of a priss, but not annoyingly so.My problem is that Kinsale has left some key literary devices to my imagination, and I've got a very cynical one, imagination that is, so I don't appreciate that one bit...I wanted a more profuse "until this moment I never knew myself" scene, where I felt the hero, who, despite being a ninja in Victorian England (um, come on, how awesome is that?), is decidedly tortured because of events in his past (they always are aren't they?) came to terms with his inner turmoil and really was free to love the priss heroine...I mean seriously, it's not just the demons of his past...he also spent most of the book attracted to the heroine, but like, in denial about it, thinking he loved someone else...where was the scene with the obligatory "I realized that my feelings for so and so were strictly platonic, and that I didn't know what love was until you, and so forth" scene?Kinsale assumes that there are some smart people reading her books, intelligistas who will gladly fill in these scenes (or add to the paltry moments she's written into the book) for themselves. But then there's me! Me, who can never be sure of the happy ending unless it's explicit because I'm always sure something bad's going to happen, no matter how much I struggle to convince myself otherwise.Sigh, it's only a book I suppose...a good book.
—Susan
This is the best of all of Laura Kinsale's books IMO. In typical fashion, Kinsale has interwoven meticulous research with the story in such a way that readers are educated as well as entertained. There's also tons of romance, sexual tension, and doses of humor to counter the heavy subject matter. Also dealt with are many issues of that time period which could easily be addressed today: human trafficking, child abuse, and double standards between the sexes. At first glance, readers may not think much of Leda and may even be irritated with her or not like her. She may seem shallow. What she is, to me, is typical of her time: a young lady of modest means who was raised in a time of strict rules and almost impossible-to-live-up-to standards. She does the best she can with what she has and doesn't step on others to get ahead. She is kind, slightly flighty, and generous to a fault. She also gets Samuel.Samuel is a respected member of his Hawaiian community as well as a successful shipping magnate with an inflexible sense of honor. (view spoiler)[He is also ninja, a virgin, and totally clueless about women. (hide spoiler)]
—Shelley
I cannot deny that this book was well written. LK knows how to tell a story and write interesting characters. I wasn't blown away by this book however. It had it's moments of greatness that made me smile and tear up, but it failed to keep me clued to the pages. I found myself being anxious for it to come to it's conclusion towards the ending when the sword storyline took precedence over the romance. I was also hoping for Samuel to reassure the reader that he wasn't in love with Lady Caroline anymore, but it never happened the way I wanted it to. I know he declared his love for the heroine but he was so obsessed with Lady Caroline when he was forced to marry the heroine that I found it hard to believe that he would just stop wanting to be with her. I didn't give up reading it though, so it was interesting enough to read, but just wasn't as spectacular as I was expecting it to be. I definitely understand the appeal of this book to others though.
—LuvGirl
