The Rabbit's Paw Book Reviews

  The Last Mandarin is a thriller that starts with alarms going off all around the world, simultaneously. Who are the terrorists, and how have they achieved this?  Vivien Li and her American born daughter Alice have always had an icy relationship, but are thrown together in an odyssey of discovery that harkens back to the Tiananmen Square protests, when Vivien became a well-known freedom fighter. Alice knows this about her mother, but is very surprised when the two of them are immediately escorted to The White House. It seems the US president very much wants to consult with Vivien and her daughter.  The two of them travel to China, interpret impossible clues, reconcile with long lost family, and also save the world!   I found the main characters in this story to be mostly likeable but not very complex. Also, we never do find out much about the terrorists or how they've managed to wreck deadly havoc around the world.  The historical part of this story, regar...

 This is my first experience reading anything by this author, and I was pleased with her style. Her characters were mostly likeable and their motives and dialogue seem believable and natural.  This novel contains more than one story. It is a family saga, a historical novel, and a bit of a mysterious ghost story. The reader learns more about the ghostly narrator as the stories unfold.   Aubrey Lamb, a young woman who seems to have her hands full, emotionally and vocationally, is introduced to us by an unnamed, ghostly narrator. Aubrey's life is depicted in a way that I found to be quite engaging.  When Aubrey begins to get emails from relatives she was barely aware of, talking about a land inheritance in Tennessee, she embarks on a bit of an odyssey that will educate her about her roots and change her life. The history of the African American Lamb family, from the time Thomas Lamb first bought this farm and built his house, is fascinating. Thomas was resourceful,...