Gail L. (divine-ms-m) reviewed on + 312 more book reviews
One of the things that puts Barbara Wood into a class of her own in historic, adventure and now also in biotech thriller writing: her thorough background research. She puts a lot of work into creating a complex and rich historical as well as atmospheric background for her lead characters. And she does it quite well for characters from foreign cultural background: the main character in "Perfect Harmony" is Charlotte Lee, a young Chinese-American woman. She is the CEO of Harmony Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company specializing in Chinese herbal medicine. As dramatic events unfold in present time and Charlotte sees her company, her professional existence and her life threatened, Wood unfolds the story of Charlotte's family and the history of the company in an equally engaging parallel storyline, and drama picks up on the mystery as well as the romantic level. Barbara Wood is the master of generation-spanning scenarios and great family sagas, as she has demonstrated before in her Egyptian tale "Virgins of Paradise" and the Australian saga "Dreamtime". Even when her sometimes a bit overly dramatic and predictably romantic heroines every once in a while come across as old-fashioned, this does not compromise the overall quality of her storytelling. Wood is a wonderful storyteller and is performing at her best in "Perfect Harmony". Pick it up, kick off your shoes and don't plan anything else for the weekend.
