Customer Reviews

The Secrets of Jin-shei

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was such a fantastic read for me. From the very first page, I was hooked; Alexander's prose is poetical and evocative of a magical place and time.
The story follows a group of young girls, all different in age, as they grow up into adulthood. These girls are all from different social classes and positions in their society; medieval China. However, they are also linked - through jin-shei. Jin-shei is a secret society of women, bound to each other not by blood but by loyalty that makes them sisters of the heart. This special bond may mean that they merely share their secrets in life, their passions, and their upsets, just as any close friends do. However, their loyalty may be tested in harder ways and a favour asked in the name of jin-shei cannot be ignored.
As the girls pass into adulthood and they begin to find their place in the world, this bond begins to be tested as one of their number becomes the Dragon Empress. In her new place of power she lusts after complete control of her state. But the loyalties of her jin-shei sisters is really put to the test when she beigns to lust after the impossible; immortality. Suddenly, their seemingly idyllic world is a place of intrigue, treason, gossip and many dangers. Will the jin-shei group survive?
This book is fantastic for those people who enjoy complete new worlds where they can escape into for a while. There are essences of religion and philosophy, magic (dark and good), love and hate, and tragedy. It is a complex book as it follows quite a few characters. However, all the characters seemed very real to me, each one had personalities which had good and weaker sides. I really enjoyed this book, it is magical. . .

Having looked at the novel's plot and read some of the other books the author has published under another name, I thought I knew what to expect: A diverting novel, sweeping in scope, with deeply examined emotions. You know, a good book. Possibly heavy on the chick-itude.

Upon entering JIN-SHEI (note the choice of words; it's less like beginning a book than falling into its world), however, I was blown away. Yes, it's sweeping. Yes, characters are given to the deepest of emotions. And yes; the main characters are women.
But the book is so very well-constructed that the characters become real; are drawn with such verisimilitude that they become as friends to the reader.

As for the chick-itude? Well, on the occasions when I read fantasy, I go for the darker stuff: The Harlan Ellison-blow-your-scalp-off stuff. And though I can appreciate the talent of, say, an Amy Tan, it's not my thing.

JIN-SHEI, however, I find, IS my thing; I simply could not put it down--and in fact could not sleep until I had finished it.
Even one of my best friends, whose taste in fantasy is more given to the Thud-and-Blunder school, read it in a shot and was similarly taken by the book.
Though by a woman, and ABOUT women, THE SECRET OF JIN-SHEI is a book for ALL readers who appreciate a good story well-told, be they male, female, or whatever else is possible.

This is writing at its finest.
Wait--did I say "writing"? Scratch that. This is WEAVING--of a tapestry so rich and defined, you cannot help but be ensnared by its threads.

In her notes, the authoress describes the initial concept for this book as "ten characters searching for a plot" and admits that there was no story until she read about "nushu", a secret Chinese written language which had been used between women for centuries but which is now extinct. Given such a large cast of major characters, a secret tie which binds them all, and the sumptuous background of a fantasy Chinese society in which magic and alchemy actually work, the stage is set for a complex and compelling tale of epic proportions. You would expect publishers to be signing up for a trilogy, at least.

Unfortunately, the promise doesn't quite reach the fulfilment it deserves. The book starts well and although all the major players appear almost too rapidly, time is spent in their character development as children. Later though, as they assume their adult roles, they become facilitators of the larger plot and drift in and out as required to keep things moving. Months, and sometimes years pass between the primary and generally traumatic events in the plot, so that at least one character can be brought from childhood to old age before the back cover. Characters recover from major traumas far too quickly, or disappear to lick their wounds in some convenient place that doesn't interfere with the pace of action elsewhere. Major characters die and are too-quickly gone, and the plot moves on. A powerful enemy is defeated in a page, leaving a strong sense of anticlimax.

Some significant developments take place offstage and leave us with no feeling of involvement; they feel more like obligatory plot requirements than actual events. Given the promise of the early part of the book, this all feels like the constraints of having to produce and conclude a well-rounded story spanning perhaps almost a century and involving a huge cast of significant characters in 500 pages. There really is no room to explore all the characters in the depth that they deserve, so only one or two of them end up as principal players at the cost of the others. Even the implications of Jin-shei itself, which supposedly forms the premise for the whole idea, are not explored as there's really no time to do so.

Having said all this, it's a memorable story and a great concept. It could have been a classic in the feminist fantasy genre had there been fewer main characters and less situations for them to explore, or if the focus could have moved away from the traumatic to the more everyday now and again. Any one of these characters would have made a good, perhaps a better, book, but this one just doesn't give them enough room. You just know from the outset that, as with all adventures that feature a large cast of heroes (or heroines in this case), some of the characters are doomed and it's probably not worth getting to know them too well.

Still a great idea, and a good read, but could have been great.

This is a wonderful novel about a group of girls growing up in an alternate China. They are from different stations in life, from lowly orphan to Imperial heir, but each one is connected through the bond of Jin-Shei, an oath of sisterhood more binding than anything. Even an order from the emperor can be refused, but a request made in the name of Jin-Shei can not. Over the course of their lives, these girls and their Jin-Shei bonds will reshape the empire.

At its heart, The Secrets of Jin-Shei is about the relationships between these Jin-Shei sisters. The conflicts and fears, the betrayals and redemptions. While the plot is engaging, it's not an action-oriented novel. The beginning chapters felt almost leisurely as we were introduced to Tai and her companions. The magical element doesn't appear until about halfway through the book. If you're looking for explosions by page three, this may not be the book for you.

For myself, I was hooked. There's an epic feel to the story, which spans an entire generation. (Or more, if you include the final chapter.) I cared about the characters, who were all too human. While some of the women choose darker paths, Alexander keeps them believable. Even as you grieve for the inevitable consequences, you understand why they made their choices. The resolution isn't entirely happy, but it feels true, which is far more important.

While The Secrets of Jin-Shei may not appeal to everyone, it's a magical, masterful novel, one of the few I'll probably come back and re-read.

Alma Alexander (real name Alma Hromic Deckert, and shame on Harper Collins for not thinking people would buy a book written by someone with that name) has combined intensive research into Chinese history with a fantasy tale of eight young women whose lives become intertwined through the bonds of Jin Shei, a voluntary sisterhood with its own language and rules.

In the real China, women have for generations developed their own secret societies with their own writing, since women were not allowed to learn the "male" languages. Only recently have Western researchers discovered these secret societies and their women's language, which is in danger now of disappearing along with thousands of other languages and cultures in this ever-more-homogenized world.

This discovery set Alma Alexander off into a what-if world of Jin Shei sisters from highly diverse backgrounds whose lives could not possibly become so complex and dependent on each other and their voluntary sisterhood. Chinese empires rise and fall with the machinations of these women and their secrets and those who would manipulate and use them. This is a novel of epic proportions and rewards.

There are two types of sisters, those of blood and those of the heart. Although both kinds appear in The Secrets of Jin-shei, sisters of the heart, jin-shei, in the ancient, mythical Chinese kingdom of Syai dominate this tale. Eight girls pledge their loyalty, first one to one, then to each other as they grow out of their early teens and into adulthood. Eight girls, a healer, an artist-poet, a warrior, a gypsy, an alchemist, a wisdom keeper, a do-gooder turned rebel, and the Empress along with a gentle ghost create a bond in sisterhood which ties, tears and destroys and heals.

Tai writes in her journal of the sisterhood in the secret women's language which historically existed in ancient China. As a young child, she slips into the Imperial gardens of the summer palace to write and sketch. There she meets another young girl, first in line to become the next Empress. Antian, the princess, is enchanted with the joyful younger girl and asks her to become jin-shei, and so the sisterhood begins. The gods interfere with an earthquake which Tai survives. She writes in her journal:

"When I was a girl and the world broke, I thought I would always divide my life by that night in the mountains--the day before, the day after. I remember the surprise I felt to see the sun rise that [next] morning. But the sun rose, as it always did, as it always would. And I lived, and the world I knew died."

The first words of the novel and the first words of Tai's journal drew me into a whirl of friendship and support, trust and mistrust, religion and court intrigue, healing and sorcery, ambition and renunciation and always loyalty to the sisters of jin-shei, even to the death.

The magic of Alexander's prose enticed me into several late nights to follow the intertwined lives of the eight sisters. I became a shadow following their living and loving, and even hoping that what was to be somehow might not become.

Alexander takes the liberty in her mythical kingdom of introducing an evil, handsome sorcerer, a disfigured and powerful King of the Beggars, and a lonely, crafty Empress, all of whom crave personal power and destroy to attain it. However, it is Tai, the quiet, joyful jin-shei sister who loves the most and is loved the most, who ties them all together. She is the one, towards the end of the story, who is able to clear a path after the chaos of intrigue and unrest towards a more stable and peaceful kingdom.

Women's friendships make a difference in our world. Here is a story of how women's friendships change a mythical and engrossing history. Mystery, romance, violence, magic, adventures, characters who could be our friends, women with amazing skills and unbounded devotion to one another. What more could one ask? This is a book which draws us into its depth and magic and holds us to the last words:

"And then they sat and watched in wonder, the old woman and the two children, as the stars shimmered into life, one by one, in the summer sky."

by Judith Helburn
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

I meant to write this months ago (and actually thought I did, but well...). Alma (Hromic Deckert) Alexander is an enchanting storyteller. Her characters are lovable, hatable, interesting, and enigmatic, as is her plot. The story pulls you along through the lives of the Jin-Shei sisters with many surprises, and the touch of fantasy entwined with quasi-Asian references (though the story takes place in a fantasy land) is just right and very believable.

I'm not sure what that one-star reviewer was thinking! I'm wondering if he/she even read the book. I, for one, couldn't put it down.

When a friend insisted I read Alma Alexander's Secrets of Jin Shei, I balked. A novel about a mythical Chinese kingdom? Empresses and alchemists and warriors? Lions and tigers and bears, I sniffed. Not my thing. But my friend persisted, as friends will do, so I reluctantly gave it a try. And found myself totally absorbed in an amazing and original tour de force.

Yes, there is magic, the magic of a writer who creates a world both credible and compelling. It is a tale of friendship and commitment among young women with very human frailties and the capacity to transcend those frailties through love. Believing in Alexander's world was effortless; the hard part was saying good-bye to those empresses and alchemists and especially to that feisty little warrior when I reached the final page.

The secrets of jin-shei must be shared with friends. I loved it.

Virginia Teague
Davie, Florida

This is an impressive "debut" for Alma Alexander -- the secret being, of course, that it's not really her debut. She's had a fantasy duology and three other books published outside the US under her real name, Alma Hromic. So opening this book puts you in the capable hands of an accomplished writer, and there are none of the first-novel fumbles. The characterizations of the young ladies early in this book reminded me of nothing so much as some of Orson Scott Card's young protagonists (particularly Xaforn, the orphan Guard). The intricate plot is deftly managed, and I was never lost no matter how complicated things got, because the book is, at its heart, character-driven, and the characters are all strongly and distinctly drawn. Only one thing detracted from my enjoyment of this book -- in the advance reader's copy I have, at least, every instance of "mourn" and its derivatives has the "u" cut out of it, undoubtedly the result of an overzealous line editor under orders from the publisher to Americanize the writer's spellings. Fortunately, the book is quite strong enough to shrug off this insult. I agree with another reviewer that this book is not just "women's fiction." The Secrets of Jin-shei should appeal to any reader who enjoys being transported to an exotic world of fascinating characters, compelling relationships, and extraordinary events.

The story was completely engrossing at the beginning, and I was hooked for about 300 pages. In fact, I searched to find other books this author had written because I wanted to read everthing she'd created. Then things started getting wierd in the book: characters would be introduced with such detail that they appeared to be main, or at least secondary, characters. Then they'd leave with little explaination.

There were parts of the story that were extraordinary: the magic was incredible, the descriptions were poetic, and the characters came to life. The only thing that kept this book from being 5 stars, for me, was that I had to keep flipping back thinking "who was this person again?". That kind of ruined the momentum.