MY BEAUTIFUL ENEMY, opens with the mad rush of a
no holds barred fight aboard a ship bound for England, and
catapults through continued far-East martial action in
England punctuated by intellectual fencing between
disenfranchised lovers. The pace is unrelenting, and the
story is heart wrenching and beautiful. I loved that the
heroine was a kick butt action hero, too.
Catherine Blade is the daughter of a Chinese courtesan and
an English adventurer. Catherine, known in her native land
as Ying-ying, travels to England under the direction of her
stepfather, Da-ren, who is uncle to the Ch'ing emperor.
Her task is to retrieve a pair of small jade tablets that
contain clues to the location of a legendary treasure in
China.
When she arrives in England, she discovers that her former
lover, whom she believed dead at her hand, is actually
alive and flourishing, and is engaged to be married.
Catherine is overcome by relief and remorse when confronted
by Captain Leighton Atwood's continued existence. Leighton
and Catherine soon find themselves at odds in their pursuit
of the jade tablets. In the course of their quest, old
secrets inexorably come to light and bring the star-crossed
lovers together once again.
Thomas flips seamlessly back and forth between the present
in Victorian England and the time seven years ago when
Catherine and Leighton first met and loved in post-Opium
War China. The events that led to their poignant
separation are slowly teased out, and I confess that I was
so caught up in the desire to know what happened that I was
compelled to cheat- at one point I quickly jumped ahead to
the next flashback chapter because I couldn't stand another
second waiting in suspense to learn what had happened 7
years prior in Chinese Turkestan.
Thomas shows her typical deft hand at creating the
atmosphere of the time and period, with a garnish of humor,
with such gems as 'The interlocking gears of a wedding,
like those of a war machine, ground on inexorably.'
and 'The English experience is not complete unless you have
trudged through ten miles of mud and then had your picnic
eaten by ants.' The exotic past set in China felt lush and
engrossing, and emphasized so vividly Catharine's current
day stoicism and austere struggles in England. I wept when
I read of the difficult times Catharine was forced to
endure; Thomas truly makes her a sympathetic character,
despite Catherine's sometimes questionable actions.
MY BEAUTIFUL ENEMY swept me up, and I devoured it in one
sitting because
I simply could not put it down until I saw the prior lovers
and current enemies reconcile and find their happily ever
after.
Hidden beneath Catherine Blade’s uncommon beauty is a daring
that matches any man’s. Although this has taken her far in
the world, she still doesn’t have the one thing she craves:
the freedom to live life as she chooses. Finally given the
chance to earn her independence, who should be standing in
her way but the only man she’s ever loved, the only person
to ever betray her.
Despite the scars Catherine left him, Captain Leighton
Atwood has never been able to forget the mysterious girl who
once so thoroughly captivated him. When she unexpectedly
reappears in his life, he refuses to get close to her. But
he cannot deny the yearning she reignites in his heart.
Their reunion, however, plunges them into a web of
espionage, treachery, and deadly foes. With everything at
stake, Leighton and Catherine are forced to work together to
find a way out. If they are ever to find safety and
happiness, they must first forgive and learn to trust each
other again…
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