Product Description

Japan, 1865, the women's palace in the great city of Edo. Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, is chosen to be his concubine. But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place and there is not even a word for 'love'. Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her own origins - a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119770 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

MY WEEKLY
Thoroughly researched, this beautifully descriptive historical saga offers a fascinating insight into the culture of imperial Japan, and will have you hooked from the first page - wonderful

WOMAN&HOME, March 08
'Enthralling story that brings alive a distant exotic world'

SANDRA GULLAND, author of Mistress of the Sun and the Josephine B. Trilogy
'The Last Concubine is an extraordinary novel--richly-imagined and compelling. An amazing achievement.'

Customer Reviews

Romantic Tale of Japan Under the Shoguns
This is a gripping, thrilling read, with a feisty heroine and a to-die-for hero. One of those books that you really don't want to come to an end. It's the story of Sachi, a young girl from a lowly village who through sheer happenstance becomes the last concubine of the reigning Shogun. Then war breaks out and she's forced to flee. On the road she teams up with a band of gruff samurai warriors, including the charismatic Shinzaemon. Through Sachi Lesley Downer tells the story of a nation in turmoil. She transports the reader to another world, one almost beyond comprehension in which the language and customs differ radically from ours. It's a thrilling and intensely romantic read, full of passion, sword fights (Sachi is an expert with the halberd) and the complexities of a society turned upside down. Downer succeeds brilliantly in recreating an entire world, one I could really see in my mind's eye. The descriptions of natural scenery - the mountain paths and urban vistas; the sights, the smells, and the sounds - are all very real and believable and wonderfully evocative of place, season, and Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. If you loved Shogun and Memoirs of a Geisha, as I did, you'll love this.

A romance set in a historic period
The historical setting of the novel is fairly faithfully described, but the author fails to bring it to life. The picture we are given of the samurai lifestyle is somewhat flat. Duty to the liege lord may well have been the defining feature of life in the samurai era, but rather than demonstrating this through characterization, Downer repeats it to the reader till it becomes little more than a platitude. This sense of duty is then contrasted with the wonderful freedom introduced to Japan as a result of Western influence at the end of the book. This overly simplistic contrast of values is really not much more than a ruse so that the love story on which the novel centres can run its course.

The novel is an enjoyable enough read and has some interesting historical detail at times, but has a few too many implausible coincidences and small inconsistencies in the plot to ever really become a page-turner. It can also be a bit trite - a number of times the two lovers are in situations where they are so close `she could feel the heat of his skin'.... I don't mean to be overly critical, as I did enjoy the story, but it was a little too Mills and Boonish for me.

Sumptuous and evocative
Lesley Downer clearly has an expert and intimate knowledge of Japan and her vivid, evocative novel is likely to appeal equally to those who know something of the country and those who have never been. Sachi's story is entirely believable yet all the more astonishing for being based on fact. The Last Concubine is a compulsive read that pulls you powerfully back in time, a great saga, like a Gone with the Wind set in Japan, with a heroine to rival Scarlett - and told with exquisite delicacy and almost cinematic verve - you can almost see the scenes unfold as you read. Downer uses her cultural knowledge and her insights into the Japanese soul to weave a powerful and subtle story that transcends conventional historical romance.