Butterfly Swords (Harlequin Historical) [Mass Market Paperback]

Jeannie Lin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2010 | Series: Harlequin Historical (Book 1014)

"Beautifully written, deliciously sensual, and rich with Tang Dynasty historical and political detail...Exceptional." -- Library Journal, starred review of The Dragon and the Pearl

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Swords, warrior princesses, and a barbarian to love! Butterfly Swords was a delight!" --Jade Lee, USA Today Bestselling Author

"Jeannie Lin tells a classic tale of courage, adventure, and impossible love...  Jeannie Lin is a fresh new voice in historical romance, and Butterfly Swords rocks!" --Mary Jo Putney, NY Times bestselling author of Never Less Than a Lady

"If Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon merged with A Knight's Tale, you'd have the power...of Lin's dynamic debut. The action never stops, the love story is strong and the historical backdrop is fascinating." --Romantic Times 4 star review:

If you are looking for a rich, radiant story slightly different than your standard fare, look no further. This is an epic tale of princesses and warriors... A wonderful tale that leaves one hungering for more by this author. --All About Romance

"The especially vibrant writing describing the culture, clothes, and countryside saves this from being just another tale of impossible love." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Back Cover

JOURNEY TO THE VERY EDGE OF HONOR, LOYALTY...AND LOVE


During China's infamous Tang Dynasty, a time awash with luxury yet littered with deadly intrigues and fallen royalty, betrayed Princess Ai Li flees before her wedding. Miles from home, with only her delicate butterfly swords for defense, she enlists the reluctant protection of a blue-eyed warrior....


Battle-scarred, embittered Ryam has always held his own life at cheap value. Ai Li's innocent trust in him and honorable, stubborn nature make him desperate to protect her--which means not seducing the first woman he has ever truly wanted....

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin Historical (October 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373296142
• ISBN-13: 978-0373296149
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Romance > Series > Harlequin Historicals

More About the Author

Jeannie Lin grew up fascinated with stories of Western epic fantasy and Eastern martial arts adventures. When her best friend introduced her to romance novels in middle school, the stage was set. Jeannie started writing her first romance while working as a high school science teacher in South Central Los Angeles. After four years of trying to break into publishing with an Asian-set historical, her 2009 Golden Heart® winning manuscript, Butterfly Swords, sold to Harlequin Mills & Boon.

As a technical consultant, backpacker, and vacation junkie, she's traveled all over the United States as well as Europe, South Korea, Japan, China, and Vietnam. She's now happily settled in St. Louis with her wonderfully supportive husband and continues to journey to exotic locations in her stories.

Find out more about Jeannie Lin online at http://www.jeannielin.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harlequin comes to China wielding Butterfly Swords, December 1, 2010

By 

Thomas Carter (Beijing, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Butterfly Swords (Harlequin Historical) (Mass Market Paperback)

Growing up in a rural, slate-roofed village deep in the countryside of southeast China, the only English books my Chinese fiancée had to read back then were a brittle copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and a set of Harlequin novels.

Yes, Harlequin, those pulpy paperbacks found on revolving wire racks at supermarket checkout aisles across North America and the UK. Their enticing cover art - usually, nay, always featuring shirtless, square-jawed men hovering millimeters away from the glistening-red lips of a damsel in distress - and formulaic flirt/fight/fall-in-love storylines mercilessly targeted housewives and secretaries longing for a 200-page escape from the dirty diapers and pot-bellied husbands of their mid-life realities.

As it turns out, it was by reading books like "Stormy Voyage" by Sally Wentworth and Roberta Leigh's "Two-Timing Man" (purchased used for 7 RMB out of a sidewalk vendor's book cart), amongst other Harlequin classics, that my fiancée managed to teach herself English (which explains her tendency to throw her head back dramatically whenever we kiss).

Curious how Harlequin, the forbidden fruit of literature, could be found anywhere in a Communist republic that has the world's most strict state-sponsored vetting process for publications, I was surprised to learn that in 1995 (about when my fiancée found her copies) Harlequin received official, red star-stamped permission to place half a million copies of twenty titles in Mandarin and a quarter-million copies of ten English versions on the shelves of Xinhua. Harlequin's stated goal: "to bring romance to millions of Chinese Women."

A China.Org article on the increasing popularity of romance books in the P.R.C. concurred with Harlequin's audacious move: "Chinese women today have new demands for their Prince Charming: first, he must be powerful and distinguished...next, he must unlimited financial resources." Wosai! No wonder China has become home to the world's highest surplus of single men!

Harlequin, which puts out 1,500 new titles annually in over 100 international markets, has yet to think up a romance set in present-day China (possible storyline: wealthy, second-generation Beijing businessman seduces sexy xiaojie with his shiny black Audie, pleather man-purse and a thick stack of redbacks; he agrees to save her Anhui village from being bulldozed by corrupt cadres if she will become his kept woman.). Until that day, we will have to entertain ourselves with stories set in China's olden times starring princesses and concubines.

Enter Jeannie Lin, Harlequin's rising red-star of romance writing. She isn't the first author on Harlequin's roster to set her books in China (that honor goes to Jade Lee and her infinite "Tigress" series). But Lin's debut novel, Butterfly Swords, has been attracting a viral buzz louder than a summertime cicada not just for being the first Harlequin novel to NOT feature a man on the cover, but for using an Asian model as the cover girl, another Harlequin first.

The star of Butterfly Swords is a Chinese woman, yes. But to give American readers something that they can relate to, the male love interest of Lin's novel is not a Chinese but a wandering whiteboy from the west. Ryam is drifting around the Tang empire begging for food (this sounds exactly like my own travels across China!) when he spots a disguised female being attacked by a pack of marauding bandits. The swordsman, who evokes images of bare-chested, fur underwear-wearing Thundarr the Barbarian from the eponymous 80's cartoon, rescues her, then agrees to escort her home. Little does Ryam know that young Ai Li is really a princess on the run from an arranged marriage to a dastardly warlord. The two proceed on their journey together across the 7th-century frontier, getting in adventures and slowly but surely falling in love.

Pitting strength, courage and her fabulous butterfly swords against the forces of evil, Ai Li proves herself in the battlefield ("With Ai Li's swords and determined spirit it was easy to forget that she was innocent"). But where the book has significant cultural crossover appeal is in author Jeannie Lin's ability to keenly capture the multi-dimensional perspectives of both characters throughout their budding interracial relationship.

From Ryam's course communicative abilities ("Where did you learn how to speak Chinese" Ai Li asks him, laughing. "You sound like you were taught in a brothel") to his struggles with his inner-white demons as a big, bad bai gui ("It was so much easier to seduce a woman than talk to her"), the reader is introduced not to some empty-headed he-man but a complex male of the species who is genuinely torn between his biological needs and respecting Ai Li's virtue. "I don't understand what she's talking about half the time," Ryam grumbles to himself. "Everything is about honor and duty." Surely even expats living in present-day P.R.C. can relate to this dilemma.

Ai Li, meanwhile, finds herself attracted not only to Ryam's "musky scent" and "sleek muscles" (Harlequin prerequisites; don't blame the authoress), but his sincerity ("There was nothing barbaric about him. His manner was direct and honest. It was her own countrymen she needed to be worried about."). The protagonist does find herself frustrated with "this swordsman with blue eyes and the storm of emotions that came with him," but, true to life, Ai Li comes with her own personality flaws as well ("she was being irrational and she knew it").

Of course, it wouldn't be a Harlequin without passionate love scenes, something my fiancée missed out on in the heavily-censored Chinese versions. This Jeannie Lin does in the poetic prose of a Tang Dynasty-era pillow book yet with just enough creatively-provocative language to keep sex-numbed westerners interested ("Ryam slipped his fingers into her silken, heated flesh...her body went liquid and damp in welcome."). And thankfully without ever once resorting to the word "loin."

Ryam proves himself to be an ideal lover for nubile Ai Li, "rough enough to make her breath catch, gentle enough to have her opening her knees," though one can't help but wonder how these two nomadic warriors can go so long without bathing nor brushing their teeth yet still manage to say things like "her mouth tasted just as sweet as he remembered." If only real life were as hygienic as a Harlequin novel.

One of the reasons why Harlequin is able to sell over 100 million units per year (the most profitable publishing company in the industry) is because every book is part of a series. There are no individual Harlequin titles, which brilliantly leaves the reader yearning for more from the characters they have literally become so intimate with. In this respect, Butterfly Swords concludes with a wide opening that screams sequel, but thankfully lacks the typical Harlequin-happy ending of matrimonial bliss.

One familiar with Chinese culture can't help but wonder, then, what kind of future Ai Li and Ryam actually have together: in reality, Ai Li would put on weight, cut her hair short and become a shrill nag; her parents and grandparents would all move into their cramped apartment, and a frustrated Ryam, now with beer-belly, would spend more and more time at card games and with karaoke parlor hostesses than at home.

But before the infuriating realties of interracial marriage set in, we hope Jeannie Lin has at least a few more of her trade-mark sword fights and steamy sensuality in store.

###

Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay Read With Wonderful Setting (B- Grade), September 23, 2010

By 

Katie Babs "Katiebabs" (NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Butterfly Swords (Harlequin Historical) (Mass Market Paperback)

Butterfly Swords is set during a unique time period in the Tang Dynasty in 758 AD China. Ai Li, the daughter of an emperor, is betrothed to marry, Li Tao, a warlord. This is an arranged marriage and one that Ai Li doesn't want because she has found out that her husband-to-be has plotted against her family and may have killed one of her brothers. Ai Li has always been the dutiful daughter, but in this case she will defy her parents' wishes and return to them and tell them what she knows, regardless if she will be disgraced in their eyes. As she's returning home, she's set upon by thugs, pretending to be bandits, thanks to one of her father's lieutenants who wants to help her. She runs off with this group of men, uncertain of her future. She trusts no one and will disguise herself as a boy using her trusty butterfly swords to protect her seeing as she has been trained in the art of sword fighting.

Things become even more complicated when Ai Li is almost drugged at a tavern. She is saved from a blue-eyed barbarian called Ryam, who is cruelly nicknamed the White Demon. Ryam is also skilled with a sword, but has become an outcast since he's not a native of Ai Li's country. He arrived in this land five years ago through the silk trade and has outlasted his welcome. Even though Ai Li is grateful for his aid, she is wary of him because he could be working for Li Tao. But because Ai Li is a woman all alone, she throws caution to the wind, and asks Ryam for protection, to be her bodyguard of sorts. Ryam thinks Ai Li is very beautiful, as well as deceitful. He doesn't believe her when she says she comes from a family of tea merchants. But against his better judgment, Ryam will escort Ai Li home, who he nicknames Ailey.

Ai Li and Ryam are surrounded by danger everywhere they turn. And even though they're both skilled with their swords, they must constantly be on their toes. As they hurry on their travels, they begin to know one another better, and soon their attraction for one another grows into an explosive passion they know will not end well. And when Ryam finally figures out who Ai Li is, and who she's running from, he's backed into a corner. Ai Li is in a worse position, whose parents are dismayed over her behavior and refuse to listen to her pleas. The only people she can turn to are her grandmother and youngest brother, who are not powerful enough to stop Li Tao who is on his way to claim her. Ai Li may have no choice but to exile herself away from all those she loves, although Ryam is more than willing to love and cherish her despite all the odds against them.

Butterfly Swords is a very unique story. Jeannie Lin has written a rich tale and one amazing heroine in that of Ai Li, who because of her strong nature, will sacrifice so much because of the deep love she has for her family. Not only does Ai Li have incredible fighting skills that put some of her male counterparts to shame, but she refuses to sit back and do what's expected of her regardless of how wrong it may be. Ai Li is a heroine with "balls." She stands up for herself and those around her knowing the outcome may end badly.

As for Ryam, I found him to be a very weak character with no spirit and only his fighting skills to recommend for him. I was very disappointed in his portrayal. I was very excited about the idea of an interracial romance, but Ryam has no real depth or dimension. He's the type of hero you can plunk down in any romance during any time period. He's more of a wallpaper type character if anything. Whereas Ai Li is amazingly written, Ryam held no appeal or substance for me. He seemed so out of place, and I don't mean because he's a stranger in a strange land. He's adequate in his role, but not much more than that. And when I reached the point where I wanted the main focus to remain Ai Li and her interactions with her family, rather than with Ryam, that became a big problem for me as a reader.

I also found Ai Li and Ryam's proclamations of love all too fast. When Ai Li first meets Ryam, she keeps her distance, and rightly so, because she doesn't know what Ryam's motivations are. But then as the walk, talk... walk and talk some more on their travels, she suddenly has this epiphany that she wants Ryam above all else. And this necessarily doesn't have anything to do with her physical attraction to him. I just couldn't get a good sense on why she wants Ryam so much.

The ending is too pat and the conclusion of Ai Li and Ryam's HEA didn't work for me. I shook my head a few times during what is the final fighting scene.

The love scenes are well written and I very much enjoyed Ai Li's family and the setting, But, with the lack of chemistry between Ai Li and Ryam, as well as Ryam not having enough dimension, I would say Butterfly Swords had merit, but overall it missed the high points I had been anticipating.

Katiebabs

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bold and Beautiful, Seriously Breathtaking, October 12, 2010

By 

TicToc - See all my reviews

This review is from: Butterfly Swords (Harlequin Historical) (Kindle Edition)

Ai Li is the number six child of the family Chang during the Tang Dynasty. Trained in the ancient art of butterfly swords by her grandmother, she is no meek woman, she is a warrior. As with most women of the time she is sent off to be married to Li Tao, to help cement relations between their lands. Ai Li learns of her intendeds duplicity as well as his involvement in the death of her brother and realizes that he is a traitor. She takes the advice of an old lieutenant, Wu, dresses as a young lad and escapes her promised husband in order to warn her father of his treachery.

Ai Li is a strong and independent woman, but is also very respectful of her parents and their traditions. While she does not want to marry a man she does not know, she follows her family's wishes.

When she escapes, she knowingly breaks tradition, but feels that her family would understand when they learn of Li Taos part in the death of her number four brother. It is during this juncture that she meets Ryam a barbarian from another country. She is kind to a stranger when she could just ignore him; she does not treat him as most foreigners are treated. She is a mix of strength and femininity with a very good heart.

Ryam is trying to forget his part in the death of his comrades. He is in a strange land with nothing but his sword and his wits to protect him. When he first spots Ai Li, she is dressed as a young man. He sees through her disguise immediately and is amused that she seems to be pulling it off. He gets involved when Ai Li is being attacked, where he then becomes her one man rescue. Not that she is not capable and very deadly with her butterfly swords as he sees for himself. He is fascinated by the contrast between the purity of her womanliness and the strength of her skills with the swords.

As Ryam agrees to stay with her till she gets home to Changan, they run into many serious satiations where each is required to draw on their deepest internal spirit to get them through. They are being pursued by Ai Li's bridegroom, Li Taos, who will not allow himself to lose face by her desertion. As a consequence of them traveling together, they begin to learn about each other as well as develop a trust based of mutual respect. What neither of them anticipates is the attraction, which is there right from the beginning. On Ryam's part this attraction is visceral and raw; he is hard put to keep himself away from her. The glances cause heat and you can feel his tension and his urgency. Since he has made himself her protector, he continues to try to protect her against himself. Ai Li also feels the attraction but is very aware of the situation she is in. She is still betrothed to another man, and while she at least hopes her family will understand why she has left and possibly caused them embarrassment, she is also even more aware of his foreignness and how it will be accepted by her family. Every touch, every look, between the two of them has you yearning for more. There must be a way for them to be together, as their tension strains at the very bond that holds them together.

This is a wonderful story of family and how they come together; it is about learning to trust yourself as well as those around you. Jeannie Lin brings the time and place together in such an amazing way, almost as though you were watching it through the words. This is a brutal time and place in history but also a time of the most famous of love stories, the most beautiful poetry and the most exquisite fashion . She has brought us to a place in history and brought it to life; she has allowed us to see what many have never had a glimpse of. The story was well told, the romance bold but sweet, and the characters were exactly what was needed to bring it all together. There were a few times in the story where it bogged down a bit, causing it to lose momentum, but over all, it was a wonderful read.

Summary

Ai Li has escaped her intended husband in order to inform her father of his treachery as well as his involvement in the death of her brother. She has not gotten very far before her would be rescuers decide to become her captors. Ryam is unwittingly drawn into this by the kindness that she has shown him. When he saves her, only to be saved by her in return, they become traveling companions as she races to reach her father.

They are pursued by her intended Li Tao, and run into danger and excitement at every turn. Ai Li is well trained in the ancient art of Butterfly Swords by her Grandmother, unbeknownst by her mother. This is not what well bread young women do. They are obedient and follow their father's wishes.

Ai Li is a mixture of amazing strength as well as a source of innocence. Ryam is a barbarian in a land of refinement. They are meant to be together, but they may be in the wrong time and the wrong place. Butterfly Swords is a fast paced and energetic book with wonderful characters. Will they be able to break the bonds of obedience, and what will happen to their forbidden love?

This book is a free ARC ebook received from Net Galley. All opinions are my own based off my reading and understanding of the material.