TBR Challenge: ‘THE CHINA BRIDE’, by Mary Jo Putney

The topic of this month is Kicking It Old School (original publication 10+ years ago)

Published: 2000

Genre: Historical

My Rating: three stars

Part of a Series: Bride Trilogy #2

In my enormous TBR pile there are quite a few oldies but goldies. It was easy to choose this one. I usually like Putney.

This romance is tagged as an ‘interracial romance’. Troth Montgomery’s father was a Scot and her mother was Chinese. She lives in Canton, disguised as a man, a translator between the foreign merchants and her Chinese master. So, as it is usual in this kind of novel, the exotic protagonist is not totally foreign, they always have to have a little bit of British blood in order to be accepted by the public, I guess. It sounds a little xenophobic, I know, but I suppose it is the way things are seen by those who put their money in the publishing industry. They do not want to take risks.

Kyle Renbourne, an English viscount arrives in China. He likes adventures, and is sincerely interested in the way other people live. He wants to discover different societies and is quite respectful, one of his most attractive traits.

He is very discerning, and discovers that the ‘male’ translator is a girl, a very attractive person. Kyle wants to go to inner China, a part that is forbidden to foreigners, in order to see a temple that has been in his mind for years.

In the end, Troth and Kyle travel together to ‘the heart of the Celestial Kingdom’, as they say in the synopsis.

They like each other and feel a strong physical attraction that blooms during their journey. Nevertheless, in the end, things go wrong and there comes another romance trope, a ‘marriage of convenience’. Kyle is condemned to death and wants Troth to have the opportunity to travel to Great Britain as his widow.

The novel is going backwards and forwards all the time. From the beginning, you know that Troth goes to England and is received by his family. Several flashbacks tells you the story of how they met and travelled together.

You are waiting to see how they could marry just before his execution, and then how he survived and returned to England, where you have to see if this marriage of convenience turns to something real. However, that moment, the ‘now’ of the novel, only arrives past the middle point of the book.

It is clear that Putney did a lot of research for this book. She tries to be very respectful of a foreign culture. Kyle’s character is great, he is open to new experiences, he does not thing England is the most important thing in the world, he shows a genuine interest in everything different, so it makes sense that he falls in love with this woman whose ideas and personality draws from different environments.

I enjoyed this book. The characters are quite interesting, and their love story develops in a very natural way. The plot was not particularly intriguing, and I guess the author took delight in reconstructing that moment in Chinese-British relations, just a little time before de Opium Wars, one of the most shameful episodes of nineteenth-century British colonialism.

It was interesting, as a historical novel, but I think it detracted a little bit of interest in the romance.