The Teardrop Story Woman by Catherine Lim

I was eager to read this book after having enjoyed the Bondmaid, but found myself taking a long time to get into it. We know from the beginning that this teardrop mole is a bad thing (oh weeping heroine), and so I kept being annoyed that Mei Kwei was so long-suffering, beautiful and somehow passive. But then I set my mind to it just as I realized that she was going to have some adventures with at least three men, so it all became more fun after that. The early bit about being unloved by her opium-drenched father was pretty oppressive.

And look! We've got the female fantasy again - the sexy Catholic priest. Whazzup with that? (See Green Darkness). I think maybe the sexy priest is the female equivalent of the reluctant, virginal maiden. His mouth says no, no but his eyes say yes, yes. Tormenting a man to that extent is very good for plot, makes the heroine seem infinitely less passive. So that was fun although the outcome of this passion was a tad realistic for my taste - hmmm, won't spoil that by giving it away. In general, though, I still had a tough time really seeing the characters and while the point about Mei Kwei always being treated as some man's property was well made, it's an upsetting sort of thing to read about for 330 pages. Perhaps also the mystical forces that were in the Bondmaid were missing, replaced by historical fact which intrigued me less.

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