4.5 stars
Fei Long's sister Pearl has been given the honour of being a heqin bride, women of the royal family or court who are sent to rulers on the Empire's borders in marriage alliances. Unfortunately for Fei Long, Pearl's eloped with another man, and his family honour is on the line unless he can find another woman to take her place.
Enter Yan Ling, a servant in a small-town teahouse. Her meet cute with Fei Long has her throwing a pot of tea over him because she thinks he is propositioning her. She's let go from her position, so Fei Long agrees to take her to Changan and train her as a replacement heqin for Pearl. But that necessitates the two of them spending a lot of time together. Fei Long begins to admire Yan Ling's determination, and Yan Ling isn't sure what to so with her feelings for the gruff man of the house.
The characters were the real highlight of My Fair Concubine and gave me so many feels. Fei Long was such a vulnerable hero, with so much responsibility on his shoulders. Yan Ling and her/Pearl's lady's maid, Dao, are - excuse me for using the dreaded phrase - such strong female characters. Yan Ling is caught in no man's land; she's not Fei Long's servant, but neither is she his equal, despite the fact that she is masquerading as his sister and will eventually receive the honorary title of princess. She's having to forge forward without any template as to her status or behaviour, and not be discouraged by Fei Long's constant nit-picking. As a servant, Dao will never have the opportunity to marry, and she is outspoken if her belief that Yan Ling is jeopardising her chance at a better life by falling for Fei Long, whose status means he will probably only dally with her, or - at best - make her a concubine.
Yan Ling's low birth also provided My Fair Concubine with a different focus to the other books in Lin's Tang Dynasty series, and different insights into life in Imperial China around 800 AD.
I could see the way one complication was going to resolved a mile away, but the mystery was in how the romantic arc was going to get the characters to that conclusion. Throughout the novel, Fei Long is very concerned over his good family name, which is endangered by Pearl's elopement and his father's debts and which also puts his lifelong family retainers at risk. I kept turning pages obsessively to see what the catalyst would be that cause him to believe that his feelings for Yan Ling were more or equally important than his family honour. This catalyst did come as a surprise, and an emotional one at that.
Lin has consistently delivered with this series, but I found this one to be particularly satisfying.
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