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Book Review

Butterfly Swords. By Jeannie Lin. Toronto and New York: Harlequin, 2010.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Tang Dynasty #1

Summary: During China's infamous Tang Dynasty, a time awash with luxury yet littered with deadly intrigues and fallen royalty, betrayed Princess Ai Li flees before her wedding. Miles from home, with only her delicate butterfly swords for defense, she enlists the reluctant protection of a blue-eyed warrior. Battle-scarred, embittered Ryam has always held his own life at cheap value. Ai Li's innocent trust in him and honorable, stubborn nature make him desperate to protect her which means not seducing the first woman he has ever truly wanted.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: violence, sexual content

**DISCLAIMER: I’m not an expert on Chinese history or the Tang Dynasty, so I can’t speak to the book’s historical accuracy. If you’ve read this and have any thoughts, feel free to reach out! I’d love to learn!***

Overview: I decided to give this book a try after seeing praise for the author on Courtney Milan’s website. I’m always in the mood for some non-European historical fiction, and the romance aspect just made this book even more appealing. While there were some things I liked about Butterfly Swords, there were also some things that irritated me, such as the protagonists’ relationship and the focus on traveling. As a result, this book was a middling read for me, but I would be interesting in seeing if (and how) the author improves, as this is, to my understanding, a debut novel.

Writing: Lin’s prose is somewhat matter-of-fact, relating events and emotions in a plain, straight-forward style. At first, I thought the prose rather sparse, but as I progressed through the novel, it became more descriptive, especially once our two protagonists finally admitted (to themselves?) that they had feelings for one another and wanted to engage in a relationship. Because this book takes place in what Lin calls a “sensuous” era (as she discusses in her author’s note), I do wish more of that sensuality came through in her writing style. Because the Tang Dynasty is so temporally removed from our current time, it would have been fun to bring the setting to life more vividly. I would have loved more lush descriptions of what the world and culture was like, and since this book is only 282 pages long, I think there was definitely some room to add more detail.

Plot: The majority of the plot involves Ai Li, our heroine, fleeing from her marriage to a warlord who has betrayed her family. She chances upon Ryam, our hero and lone wandering “barbarian,” and convinces him to act as a kind of bodyguard and escort her back to her father. This premise lasts for maybe half the book, switching to focus on what to do once Ai Li has a falling out with her family (for lack of a better term, without spoiling anything) and how she and Ryam can be together. I found the first half of the book to be a little rocky; the lack of detail about the politics driving this situation made for some confusion, and the looming threat of the warlord’s forces was less suspenseful and more convenient.

The majority of the plot also revolves around Ai Li and Ryam traveling, and personally, I think these kinds of narratives are difficult to do well. Traveling or journeys provide an easy narrative structure, but they lack suspense. Events don’t really build on one another as much as they just happen - characters encounter this village where this event happens, then they continue to this part of the forest, where this happens, and so on. This isn’t necessarily Lin’s fault - it’s a problem I see throughout fiction that structures narrative this way. The threat of the being detected isn’t really felt or, if it is, it can feel repetitive.

I much preferred the moments when Ai Li interacts with her family. Family and honor are priorities for her, and the politics of the book were woven in well with Ai Li’s  personal stakes. Ai Li risks losing her family in multiple ways: by bringing shame to them through her disobedience, by refusing to marry her fiance and creating peace in the empire, by disapproving of her father’s plans regarding her mother, etc. It created interesting tension at both micro and macro levels, and I was pleased that the personal-political conflicts neither framed family and honor as “old fashioned” or necessarily repressive, nor did the story as whole advocate for a complete break from values and traditions. Instead, it explored the delicate balance of obligation vs selfishness, considering the value of honor in a world devoid of it.

Characters: Ai Li, our heroine, is a sword-wielding princess who flees an arranged marriage to a traitorous warlord. She’s impulsive and reckless without being irritating - she acts without thinking mainly when it comes to her desires, and while it does sometimes get her in trouble, I don’t think there were any moments when she did something genuinely stupid to make plot happen. I also liked that she valued honor and her family but not to the extent that she would tolerate immorality from those closest to her. She is somewhat naive in that she had never been in an actual fight and doesn’t quite know how to survive on her own - her disguise is obvious, she can’t concoct convincing lies, and she trusts a bit too easily (hence the need for Ryam), but she’s unafraid to trek out on her own, if she has to.

Ryam, our hero, is a “foreigner” who roams throughout the empire after a disastrous military encounter leaves him on his own. His self-loathing through repeated references to how he was a “barbarian” and not a good person got a little repetitive after a while, and aside from his ability to fight, he didn’t have much going for him. He doesn’t seem to have clear goals or motivations, which made it hard to see why Ai Li was drawn to him until the author tells us that he listens to her and considers what she wants. I wish some more effort was made to make him more interesting, not just a gruff warrior who makes excuses about not being good enough for his love interest.

Supporting characters were more or less fine, playing the role they are meant to play. I really liked the kindness of Ai Li’s grandmother, Ryam’s commander (Adrian), and the former princess Miya. All of them seemed to genuinely care about the people around them, and it was wonderful to see them interact with and offer guidance to the protagonists, who were struggling with sorting out what they wanted.

I didn’t much care for our antagonist, a warlord named Li Tao. He’s somewhat of a boogeyman in that he doesn’t show up in person until the end of the book, making his looming threat somewhat toothless.

Other: I personally found the romance between Ai Li and Ryam to be up and down. While I did like that Ai Li felt that Ryam valued her voice and desires more than anyone else in her life (which Lin definitely should have leaned into more), I ultimately thought the foundation of their relationship was a little weak. From their first meeting, Ai Li and Ryam are physically attracted to one another, which is fine, but Ryam’s constant thinking of how he had to keep his masculine impulses in check was annoying. In addition to Ai Li deciding to trust a man she’s only just met (which seems foolish to me), the two kiss after knowing each other for one day, and only as a reward for Ryam winning a sparring contest. It felt too physical and because their relationship starts out this way, I had a hard time seeing what each character saw and wanted in the other, other than physical attraction. When they started to open up to one another, things got a little better, but the entire book takes place over something like a month, making their eventual union and declaration of love feel rushed. Moreover, even after things got a little more emotional, I still wanted more exploration of how the two enriched each other’s lives. There was a great foundation in that Ryam listened to Ai Li and took her desires (romantic or otherwise) seriously, but Ai Li’s role in making Ryam less self-loathing and more honorable wasn’t quite as interesting or empowering.

The repetitive nature of their budding relationship also made their romance hard to get excited about until the middle/end, when things got more complex. Ryam would constantly work on suppressing his sexual feelings, while Ai Li would talk about her family and her brothers. Then, the two would kiss or do something somewhat sexual, then back off while making excuses about how they could’t be together. Their interactions cycled through this script a few times, which ensured that their relationship didn’t progress as much as it followed a predictable pattern.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in historical romance, the Tang Dynasty, political conflict, sword-wielding heroines, and romances not set in Europe.