Valerie Lee
Autore di The Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Women's Literature
Opere di Valerie Lee
Inequality at the Starting Gate 1 copia
Stolen Laces 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
Utenti
Recensioni
Statistiche
- Opere
- 13
- Utenti
- 41
- Popolarità
- #363,652
- Voto
- 3.2
- Recensioni
- 1
- ISBN
- 9
The copy came with edits, most referenced the need to identify who was speaking. In a lot of dialog there were almost no identifiers. There were a lot of references to her and she. In a scene with only two characters, it was usually easy to identify the speaker, but most of the ambiguity came when a third character joined in, or a scene changed abruptly. Hopefully, by the final rewrite, everything becomes clear. Other than this, Valerie has created a tightly woven story.
The Jade Rubies is a story of good vs evil, using the backdrop of Chinese imigration into Canada from the early 1900s. Valerie Lee's story could be called a historic romance, much in the style of Jude Deveraux, whose main characters are loved, but have to live through unpleasant events. It shows how the strength of human spirt prevails and the will to survive drives the change of circumstances of both good and evil characters.
Valerie has used a detached, journalistic style of writing for the harsher scenes and characters. And emblished the positive scenes and characters with emotional values to clearly give the reader hope.
In her story, two young sisters, Sulan and May, are reluctantly sold into servitude. Valerie takes them out of their familiar home in China to travel overseas with their new Mistress and Master to live in Canada. As their new master builds his import/export empire, we see the history of Chinese life in Canada revealed, along with the corruptions from too much power, sex and drugs.
The girls are intelligent even though they are denied formal schooling. This is their strong suit, it carries them through the cruel behavior they receive in their new home. While the materialistic desires of the mistress and master prevail for many years, the girls' intelligence and strength of character gives them the edge to hang on. Unexpected events take place, upsetting the imbalance of their lives.
Meeting new loves, and rejoined by past loved ones, Sulan and May gain their freedom and discover the connections that existed before they were sold into servitude.
… (altro)