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.