Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Told in the style of the classical Japanese women's diaries from the Heian era (7941185 C.E.) Jedamus's first book is a melodramatic court romance. The banishment of Kanesuke no Tachibana for his crime of seducing the emperor's daughter sets off a bitter feud between the brooding narratorwho is 29, unnamed and a provincial governor's daughterand her friend-turned-rival Izumi no Jiju. They both love Kanesuke, and they are both ladies-in-waiting to Empress Akiko (real-life mistress to Tale of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu), and they engage in a battle to ruin each other's reputations through spying and gossip. When a ripe intrigue of the narrator's backfires with the empress, and, separately, the emperor's son and heir dies of smallpox, the narrator's moral corruption is blamed, forcing her to commit an act of sacrifice that is also her redemption. Jedamus, whose background is in art history, skillfully evokes the elegant aesthetic and elaborate pageantry of the Heian period, particularly in the book's fascinating glossary. But her writing is as florid as her plot is overwrought. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Jedamus's prose, like a prolonged Haiku, captures the Japanese obsession with subtle natural detailA finely wrought depiction of turbulence." -Kirkus Reviews
"Jedamusskillfully evokes the elegant aesthetic and elaborate pageantry of the Heian period, particularly in the book's fascinating glossary." -Publishers Weekly
"This is a story skillfully told...The language is superb and in sympathy to the era and country in which it is set, yet at the same time the emotions that are weaved back and forth are those that take place in every generation all over the world." -Yorkshire Gazette Herald (UK)
"This is a careful tale of jealousy and revenge....Jedamus brings tenth century Japan to life with this diary centering on palace life....The diarist narrator conjures a piercing image of the era." -Good Book Guide (UK)
"[F]or all the novel's exoticism, what gives it its edge is Jedamus's modern Psychological acuity." -Observer (UK)
From Publishers Weekly
Told in the style of the classical Japanese women's diaries from the Heian era (7941185 C.E.) Jedamus's first book is a melodramatic court romance. The banishment of Kanesuke no Tachibana for his crime of seducing the emperor's daughter sets off a bitter feud between the brooding narratorwho is 29, unnamed and a provincial governor's daughterand her friend-turned-rival Izumi no Jiju. They both love Kanesuke, and they are both ladies-in-waiting to Empress Akiko (real-life mistress to Tale of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu), and they engage in a battle to ruin each other's reputations through spying and gossip. When a ripe intrigue of the narrator's backfires with the empress, and, separately, the emperor's son and heir dies of smallpox, the narrator's moral corruption is blamed, forcing her to commit an act of sacrifice that is also her redemption. Jedamus, whose background is in art history, skillfully evokes the elegant aesthetic and elaborate pageantry of the Heian period, particularly in the book's fascinating glossary. But her writing is as florid as her plot is overwrought. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Jedamus's prose, like a prolonged Haiku, captures the Japanese obsession with subtle natural detailA finely wrought depiction of turbulence." -Kirkus Reviews
"Jedamusskillfully evokes the elegant aesthetic and elaborate pageantry of the Heian period, particularly in the book's fascinating glossary." -Publishers Weekly
"This is a story skillfully told...The language is superb and in sympathy to the era and country in which it is set, yet at the same time the emotions that are weaved back and forth are those that take place in every generation all over the world." -Yorkshire Gazette Herald (UK)
"This is a careful tale of jealousy and revenge....Jedamus brings tenth century Japan to life with this diary centering on palace life....The diarist narrator conjures a piercing image of the era." -Good Book Guide (UK)
"[F]or all the novel's exoticism, what gives it its edge is Jedamus's modern Psychological acuity." -Observer (UK)
