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Feb 24

19

HER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha- Review

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on February 19, 2024
Posted in Book Review • Books Read in 2024 • Historical Memior • Khanh Ha • My Current Giveaways • Uncategorized  | Tagged With: , , , | 1 Comment

HER: The Flame TreeHER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha


Publisher:  Gival Press, (October 1, 2023)
Category: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Tour dates: January 16-Feb 23, 2024
ISBN:  978-1940724454
Available in Print and ebook, 280 pages

HER: The Flame Tree

Description HER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha



If the fate of unrequited love survives fifty-one years, nine months, and four days in Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, it leads the way for HER: The Flame Tree, a spare, remorseless love triptych that sweeps through the rich panorama of two generations of colonial and post-colonial Vietnam. The hopeless love of a young eunuch for a high-ranking concubine is one of this novel’s three stories that illuminate the oriental mystery of Vietnam, as epic as it is persevering,

Despite a rich trove of documentary films, Western readers know little of the spiritual face of Vietnam. Framed between 1915 and 1993, HER: The Flame Tree begins in Huế, the former imperial capital Vietnam. It is in the Purple Forbidden City, that Canh, the young eunuch, fulfills his vow to be near the girl of his dreams, a villager-turned imperial concubine.

The novel begins with an expatriate Vietnamese man living in the United States who journeys back to Vietnam to search for the adopted daughter of a centenarian eunuch of the Imperial Court of Huế to find out who she really is. His world takes on a new meaning after he becames a part of her life.

Phượng. Her name is the magnificent flame tree’s flowers that grace the ancient capital of Huế. Her father, mentor of Canh the young eunuch, was a hundred-year-old grand eunuch of the Imperial Court, who had adopted and raised her since she was a baby. Their peaceful world suddenly changed when one day, sometime in the early years of the Vietnam war, Jonathan Edward came into their lives. On his quest to search for his just deceased lover’s mysterious birth, there he met Phượng, an exquisite beauty.

Through the eye of her father, history is retold. Just before the fall of the French Indochina during the last dynasty of Vietnam, a young eunuch hopelessly fell in love with a high-ranking concubine. Once the eunuch had secured the concubine’s trust, it became a fatal attraction. The eunuch died. The concubine, still a virgin, lost her mind. Her father said she was possessed by the young eunuch’s spirit who had been madly in love with her.

HER: The Flame Tree does not have the flavor of historical fiction, plot-heavy and sexually graphic. Rather, it is atmospheric and impressionistic, in the style of Snow Falling on Cedars. The magnificent poinciana flowers, which grace the ancient capital of Huế, symbolize farewell in Vietnamese adolescent romance. Its symbolic image befits Phượng for her magnanimous nature and grace, and the scarlet blossoming flowers when Jonathan Edward bids Phượng farewell is beauty without sadness—Wait and Hope.

Review HER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha


‘HER: The Flame Tree’ centers around the life of Phuong. She was adopted by a  eunuch of the Imperial of Huế, in Vietnam. Her name represents the flame tree’s flowers the are all around Huế.

The eunuch had invested in a noodle shop for Phuong to run as a teenager.  He tried to dissuade her, pointing that he could care for her until she marries but she had an independent spirit.  It was while she was working in her noodle shop that she met Jonathan Edward.  He was looking for the daughter of his deceased lover.

Thus begins the story of the eunuch of the last dynasty of Vietnam and his adopted daughter. It covers his young love of high-ranking concubine and how he eventually adopted his daughter, around the fall of the dynasty.

Decades later, Minh, an expat of Vietnam travels back to his home country to speak with Phuong, now an old woman. About her life and that of her father’s.

HER, brings us on a at times, beautiful but at times painful journey as we follow Phuong’s and her father’s journey through time in Vietnam.  Ha’s poetic prose captures the times and place with the force of the powerful flame tree.  He captures the beauty and brutality of life. It is so atmospheric; it just takes your breath away! I have found all of his books to be both beautiful and brutal but this may just be his best one to date! I highly recommend that you read ‘‘HER: The Flame Tree’ and if you haven’t already done so, all of his books.  He just captures the human condition, unconditionally, warts and all in a beautiful, almost spiritual way. 5-stars

About Khanh HaKhanh Ha



Award winning author Khanh Ha is a nine-time Pushcart nominee, finalist for The Ohio State University Fiction Collection Prize, Mary McCarthy Prize, Many Voices Project, Prairie Schooner Book Prize, The University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize, Prize Americana, and The Santa Fe Writers Project. He is the recipient of the Sand Hills Prize for Best Fiction, The Robert Watson Literary Prize in Fiction, The Orison Anthology Award for Fiction, The James Knudsen Prize for Fiction, The C&R Press Fiction Prize, The EastOver Fiction Prize, The Blackwater Press Fiction Prize, The Gival Press Novel Award, and The Red Hen Press Fiction Award.

Website: http://www.authorkhanhha.com
Blog: http://authorkhanhha.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KhanhHa69784776
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorkhanhha
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/khanhha

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Giveaway- HER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha



This giveaway is for 2 print or ebook copies print is open to the U.S. only. Ebook is open worldwide. This giveaway ends on Feb 23, 2024 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.

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HER: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha

Aug 14

22

Giveaway: The Agincourt Bride By Joanna Hickson

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on August 22, 2014
Posted in Historical Memior • My Past Giveaways  | Tagged With: , | 9 Comments

Agincourt BrideThanks to Tracy Diamond of Harper Collins, I am giving away one copy of  ‘The Agincourt Bride’.

Book Description:

Her beauty fuelled a war.
Her courage captured a king.
Her passion would launch the Tudor dynasty.

When her own first child is tragically still-born, the young Mette is pressed into service as a wet-nurse at the court of the mad king, Charles VI of France. Her young charge is the princess, Catherine de Valois, caught up in the turbulence and chaos of life at court.

Mette and the child forge a bond, one that transcends Mette’s lowly position. But as Catherine approaches womanhood, her unique position seals her fate as a pawn between two powerful dynasties. Her brother, The Dauphin and the dark and sinister, Duke of Burgundy will both use Catherine to further the cause of France.

Catherine is powerless to stop them, but with the French defeat at the Battle of Agincourt, the tables turn and suddenly her currency has never been higher. But can Mette protect Catherine from forces at court who seek to harm her or will her loyalty to Catherine place her in even greater danger?

About Joanna Hickson:Joanna-Hickson

Joanna spent twenty-five years at the BBC writing and presenting for radio and television. Gripped by Shakespeare’s historical plays, Joanna began researching the King Henry V’s ‘fair Kate’ as a schoolgirl and the story of Catherine de Valois and the Tudor genesis has remained with her throughout life. She lives in an old farmhouse in East Lothian and is married with a large family and a wayward Irish terrier.

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This book giveaway is open to the U.S. and Canada and ends on September 5,2014.  Please use Rafflcopter to enter.

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Jan 09

9

Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on January 9, 2009
Posted in Books Read in 2009 • China • Historical Memior  | 19 Comments

True Historical Family Saga

When Cambridge educated lawyer Helen Tse decided to give up her career to go back to her roots and open up a Chinese restaurant with her two sisters, her elders thought she was nuts. Her grandmother and mother work hard so that Helen and her sister’s could all get good educations and not have the worries and work that a restaurant owner has. Lily, her grandmother and Mabel, her mother should know, they both had owned restaurants.

Before deciding to open the restaurant, Helen decided to take a journey back in time to discover her family history. Her great grandfather had a soy sauce business in China. He moved his family from a poor country village to the hustle and bustle of city life in Hong Kong. Not long after he died and the family had to find a way to make survive. Lily, just a child herself takes a job as an amah for a British family. An amah takes care of children.

Lily eventually married and had children herself, but her husband left her. She continued as an amah while her mother took care of her children. She befriends the family she was working for and got an invitation to move with them to England. This invitation didn’t include her children, so what was she to do? What would you do?

I won’t tell you anymore for risk of spoilers.

When I first read the description of the book it intrigued me but at the same time had the potential to be saccharin sweet. This was not the case. This a true multi generational family saga that is not to be missed. It got off to a bit of a slow start but after a short while, Helen Tse had me turning the pages until the end. This is an inspiring story that is not syrupy sweet.

4/5
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press send my a copy of this book!

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