this book was poignant and beautifully written. It brought tears to my eyes to see the purity of love between two people so young, yet so scarred by life already. AND...it was left WIDE OPEN for a sequel! I am waiting to see!

While the title is very misleading (the main character may be Russian, but at no time is she anyone's concubine), it's a very good story. Coming of age for a young woman in an international settlement, in the beginning of Communist China. So, it not only deals with her personal conflicts, but the social/political situation as well. It is well-balanced so that part isn't overwhelming to the main part of the story.

I am confused about the title of this book. This book is about 17 year old Lydia who falls in love with Chang. Lydia lives in a whites-only part of a Russian town. Chang is a Chinese communist that is wanted by the police. Chang gets severely injured, and Lydia nurses him back to health. They fall in love, however, they both know that they cannot be together without the danger of being killed. I thought the book was a little difficult to read. I thought that it kind of rambled on and on. If you like historical fiction with a little romance, then this book is for you.

Loved this book although the title and the cover do not have anything to so with this historical fiction of expats in China. I thought it was up there with Memoirs of a Geisha (and I loved that book).

This got better as you got further in to it. When it was over, I wished there was a sequel.

(contains minor spoiler)

This book is so totally like nothing I would have read on my own, someone from my book club chose it. It's historical fiction. But it's pretty light on the historical stuff, so it wasn't too bad. The author's writing style is very nice, but she's a little too wordy - 50 pages of this 517 page book could have easily been cut, if not more. I found the Chang love story to be ridiculous. I'm sorry, I'm not that far up on my history, but there's no way that story is even half way plausible, no one escapes that much. LOL.

I would have liked to have read more about Lydia and her mother. I don't understand why it has the title it has. I feel like I missed something in this book. Perhaps reading it over the holidays wasn't the smartest decision, I dunno. I'll have to see if I'm the only one that went away wondering about the title. I frequently miss subtle things though. I need in your face! ;)

Anyway, a decent read. If you like historical fiction, you might like this, but if you are a stickler or wordy writers or sub plots that are completely unbelievable, you might want to skip it. Again, the author has a beautiful writing style... I believe this might be her first book though, so I'm willing to give her next one another shot (as long as it's NOT a sequel). ;)

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I read a lot of Russian History and came across this book. A story about Russian emigres in China just before Communist takeover of China, it largely focuses on the love story of Lydia and Chang. However, if you go deeper it also relates the take of the displaced Russian emigre after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. [For those who may have missed it, the title refers to the mother and "payments" to a wealthy man for her and her daughter's well-being. She is in China, hence the term concubine. I will not post more for fear of giving up the plot.] Anyway, not bad historical fiction. I would suggest her other story about the gulag, The Red Scarf. Although there are some historical leeway in that one, if you enjoyed this one, you probably will enjoy that one as well.

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