Well that is another one 'put to bed' - The Russian Concubine tells the story of a young girl who has fled the Bolshevik uprising in Russia and settled with her mother in Jungchow, China. Kate Furnivall blends the history of the period with believable characters to create a rich story.

Some of the descriptions are so good I could almost smell the street markets, the insanitary conditions in the city streets and the clean river when the junks sail down stream to collect opium.

You can imagine the sort of scrapes a teenage girl gets herself into in this risk laden location; theft, witness to murder, nursing her lover ... and then there is a large white rabbit Sun Yat-Sen ... you will have to read about him for yourself I couldn't spoil it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and although it felt slightly unfinished I understand that a sequel is due out soon ... I will be front of the queue for that.

So now I have moved on to read Imprimatur (Monaldi & Sorti) - again rich in history but supposedly much less fictional. More later ...

The notebook was a good movie but a crappy book. Its the only one I can think of. The movie has genuine emotion and context, the book reads like your steryotypical crappy romance novel which is not to my liking.