An unforgettable tale set in Victorian London and 1840s China from a shining, young historical talent.
Desperate to shield her from scandal, Mary's brother-in-law, the ambitious botanist Robert Fortune, forces her to accompany him on a mission to China to steal tea plants for the East India Company. But Robert conceals his secret motives - to spy for the British forces, newly victorious in the recent Opium War.
His task is both difficult and dangerous - the British are still regarded as enemies by the Chinese and exporting tea bushes carries the death sentence. In these harsh conditions Mary grieves for her London life and the baby she has been forced to leave behind, while her fury at Robert intensifies.
As their quest becomes increasingly treacherous, Robert and Mary disguise themselves as a mandarin and man-servant. Thousands of miles from everything familiar, Mary revels in her new freedom and the Chinese way of life - and when danger strikes, finds unexpected reserves of courage.
The Secret Mandarin is an unforgettable story of love, fortitude and recklessness - of a strong woman determined to make it in a man's world and a man who will stop at nothing to fulfil his desires. Just The Man She Needed young historical talent.
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His task is both difficult and dangerous - the British are still regarded as enemies by the Chinese and exporting tea bushes carries the death sentence. In these harsh conditions Mary grieves for her London life and the baby she has been forced to leave behind Only a Whisper while her fury at Robert intensifies.
As their quest becomes increasingly treacherous Midsummer Night (Lady Julia Grey, Robert and Mary disguise themselves as a mandarin and man-servant. Thousands of miles from everything familiar Copper Lake Secrets Mary revels in her new freedom and the Chinese way of life - and when danger strikes Always You finds unexpected reserves of courage.
The Secret Mandarin is an unforgettable story of love You Sexy Thing! fortitude and recklessness - of a strong woman determined to make it in a man's world and a man who will stop at nothing to fulfil his desires.
Lopera di Rabelais e la cultur la Rabelais
Lopera di Rabelais e la cultur la Rabelais
This novel is the fictionalised account of botanist Robert Fortune's mid nineteenth century expeditions through China to find tea plants and to do a bit of spying on the side. I found the botanical elements of the story fascinating (a long time ago now, I did a Botany degree!).
In this novel Fortune is accompanied by his sister in law, Mary, a fictional character, who is running away from disgrace. It is perhaps predictable that the two fall in love, but I thought the development of their relationship was beautifully managed (from outright dislike to deep passion). I also thought that both characters developed as individuals through the journey, as they experienced extreme hardship and danger. The novel is also very insightful about gender relationships and the relations between the UK and China during the time period.
It's an easy read but one that has a lot more to offer than that.
I felt obligated to finish this, as I had borrowed it from a friend. It had a good, engaging beginning, but the middle just SLOGGED on, as Mary Penney and Robert Fortune traversed the Chinese countryside in search of plants. I skimmed a lot of the middle- it really was just boring. The ending wasn't all that spectacular either. Oh, and Robert is an ass. I can't see why either woman fell in love with him.
It seems I am unable to rate this.
This particular book is the story of a very strong heroine that I liked. I was happy for her, happy that she got up and dusted the disgrace from her dress, happy that she had more than grace and beauty, happy she found love-even thou it was in the wrong place. But still, in the end
3.5*
I give up. Decided I won't waste any more time on this book. Was waiting for it to become interesting, but that didn't happen.
One of the worst books i read
This book was not great. At first I was quite interested and did want to know what would happen to Mary as she was sent off in shame but latterly I just didn't really give two hoots about either her or the ridiculous Robert who appeared to have entirely changed his whole personality from the start to end of the book! They were able to learn a notoriously difficult language in no time and understand every single different dialect they came across all with no tutoring or anything. They disguise themselves both as Chinese men and no one saw through this. They steal as much information, plant material and national security intelligence as they could manage. They murder someone and again no one ever questioned it. They got into all sorts of sticky situations and miraculously always managed to get out of them relatively unscathed. Mary doesn't seem to miss her child at all and Robert likewise with his whole family. They have no regard for his wife/her sisters feelings whatsoever even whe...
Što mi se svidjelo: odvažna glavna junakinja koja se ne uklapa u stereotip viktorijanske žene. Opisi Kine i pustolovina.
Što mi se nije svidjelo: pozamašni opisi biljaka i botanike. Užasno spora radnja.
Što se tiče romantičnog dijela, veza između glavne junakinje i muža njene sestre mi je bila zanimljiva, ali nisu me baš očarali.
Sve u svemu solidna knjiga :)
Just finished this book. It has been a long and arduous journey. At some points it felt like pulling teeth.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
One of the most boring books i have ever read.
Such a great disappointment... lack of interesting storyline, too much nonsense, completely unsatisfied ending... I feel sorry for the time I've spent reading this, I could have done something actually meaningful in my life.
It was boring as hell.
I enjoyed this book for the most part however I was very disappointed in the romance aspect - I really wish this could have been excluded. I loved the botanical aspects and the story of how they travelled around China despite this being very far fetched.
Možda nemamo muškarca u kući, ali znamo se snaći same.
A važno je ako ljudima nanosiš zlo, Mary.
Ne možeš dobiti sve što poželiš.
Ko se vec jednom opekao i na hladno puse.
..mir i razonodu tesko je naci osim u vlastitoj glavi...
Mozda glumacki talenat nije sasvim sramotan, ali sramotna su neka mjesta na koja talenat moze odvesti
Nisam uciteljica, nisam ni prikladna zena za kakvu staru dusu koju sretnes usput dok planiras putovanje. Zelim biti svoja..
Divila sam se se Robertovoj ustrajnosti i odlucnosti u HK. Dosao je ovamo samo sa glavnim crtama plana, a u velikoj je mjeri uspio razraditi pojedinosti. U ta tri tjedna je organizovao putovanje, obavio dogovore za planirani izvoz, i dao sve od sebe da me zbrine.
Nakon promišljanja naposljetku sam shvatila da su moja najbolja djela sitnice.
Bozija se volja u svemu ogleda.
Nikada se ne valja sramiti nakana Svevisnjeg.
Absolutely awful. It impressively manages to be both over-written (language/writing style) and under-written (plot) and borders on the offensive. At first I was intrigued by Mary's story of scandal and being sent abroad, but it all goes downhill from there. The protagonist is some sort of genius who can learn the complexities of Cantonese and Chinese culture by staying in British Hong Kong for mere weeks, she falls in love with her sister's husband who is a cold-hearted brute who controlled and abused her for the first half of the story, and she seems to care little about the humanity of the Chinese people (sure, just steal from them and kill them and don't feel sorry at all) or indeed her own sister's feelings. Her own sister is looking after her illegitmate son and she doesn't give a shit about her as she persues her husband and barely thinks of home. Oh, and they do yellowface to trick the Chinese people. I mean... this book was just offensively awful in so many ways. I was shoc...
Such a good book - Sara Sheridan writes so well and her stories are good and move along apace. This is about Mary whose brother-in-law insists on her leaving the family home as she has disgraced them by being an actress and having an illegitimate baby. He takes her on a ship off to Hong Kong and the story goes on from there. Things change of course and it’s about gathering plants and botany as well. An interesting book with again a mix of fact and fiction which I enjoy. Definitely worth a read.
Es una de las historias que más difícil me ha resultado leer... La verdad es que las narraciones sobre los ambientes me ha distraído lo suficiente del amor prohibido de los protagonistas como para no dejar el libro, aún así, Sara Sheridan me pareció una increíble autora
I like the adventure but I REALLY HATE the endings.
DNF 50%
Wow, I basically never dnf a book. Just not finding this interesting at all. The characters feel v inconsistent some how.
Really enjoyed this story. Very atmospheric story, brilliant storyline and I could imagine the places that were described.
This isn't the kind of book I'd normally read and I only picked this up so I could tick China off my list but I really enjoyed it.
country 32: China
Odlična knjiga za one koje vole putopise🤷🏽♀️
A beautiful story of adventure in the Far East.
2.5
This is a tale of a disgraced woman, a secret mission and the quest to find tea in C19th China. As I have a fascination about anything to do with China I did think this book would appeal to me and it did up to a point.
We follow our two lead characters Robert Fortune and Mary across the seas to another land and new adventures. Mary has been disgraced in London as she has had a child out of wedlock and Robert, her brother in law, seeks to get rid of her to a faraway place.
Robert is off to China in search of tea plants and others he can sell back in London and he takes Mary with him albeit under duress as Mary cannot stand him.
Once we reach China the author completely captures the sounds, sights and smells for the reader and it does feel at times that her descriptive narrative can overtake the story and we sometimes loose the characters. This is a real shame as we do not get to know the backgrounds of both Robert and Mary fully and so cannot grow to love them as peop...
My 2010 bookcrossing review:
Quite an interesting story. It's set in the middle of the 1800s, and is narrated by Mary, an actress who is in "disgrace", having had a baby out of wedlock. Because of this disgrace, her family decide that she needs to leave the UK and move to India (which I found a wee bit hard to believe, even for those times, but anyway...). So she sets sail with her brother-in-law, Robert Fortune, who is a fictionalised version of a real-life botanist who travelled round the far east. Mary ends up travelling around China with him in search of the secrets of tea, disguising herself as a man servant. They do a lot of travelling to discover that green and black tea come from the same plant. The whole historical travelling through China and adventure story are good, entertaining reading.
On the start of the journey, Mary and Robert don't get on. She is a disgrace and he doesn't understand her need for her freedom. They argue violently at the drop ...
Another superb adventure story from Sara Sheridan. Once again she weaves her tale around episodes from lives and journals of real people and real places. This gives the book an wonderfully authentic sense of time and place, the detail of the unexplored Chinese interior is richly evoked and beautifully described.
Mary Penney is up to her neck in scandal in 1840's London, an actress who became pregnant by and was then abandoned by her aristocratic lover she is a constant source of social embarrassment to her sister and her emotionless brother-in-law. Inconveniently surviving a shipwreck on her way to find a husband in India, she is made less than welcome on her return to London. She is exiled once more and, this time, her cold and seemingly cruel brother in law Robert intends to make very sure that she can do no further damage to his reputation. Robert is heading for China, on a dangerous mission to collect new plant specimens and learn the closely guarded secrets of tea making....
Síce je tam aj romantika, ale taká znesiteľná, je to celkom príjemný príbeh, dávam 3,5 hviezdy.
Keď slobodná žena v polovici 19. storočia otehotnie a porodí nemanželské dieťa, nemá veľa možností... Buď bude hladovať, alebo sa prispôsobí rodine a splní podmienky, ktoré jej kládol švagor a jej sestra. Dieťa vychovajú, no ona musí odísť, aby nerobila hanbu. A možno sa aj vydá. Mary teda nemala na výber a bola vyslaná do Indie. Vraj sa tam má vydať. A ako skončila teda v Číne? Nechajte sa prekvapiť. :)
Už sa mi niekoľkokrát stalo, že som knižky ponúkla do výmeny a pritom som ich ešte len začala čítať a potom som aj ľutovala, že ich vôbec púšťam preč... Je to pekná knižka, aj keď mi spočiatku robilo problém sa do nej začítať, lebo som sa s hlavnou hrdinkou nevedela stotožniť, hlavne mi vadilo, že dokázala opustiť svoje nedávno narodené dieťa. Druhá a tretia štvrtina boli najzaujímavejšie, no zdĺ...