I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't a typical lesbian romance. It's about two couples. Lauren and Faith, and Cassie and Jennifer. They meet on a cruise on the Yangtze River in China, before the dam goes up. They hang out a lot, and Casey and Lauren become friends during the trip.

But, because it's a romance Cassie and Lauren find themselves becoming closer and closer.

Then we have a bit of a time skip of a year when Jennifer go up and visit Faith and Lauren and it gets very complicated between Cassie and Lauren.

Finally there's another time jump, this time of ten years, and Cassie and Lauren meet again, and from there it's more a typical lesbian romance.

I thought it was a bit different than an average lesbian romance in another way too. It wasn't just the two women who played prominent roles. Cassie's family situation especially played a part in the story. And one of my favorite characters was Cassie's son. He seemed to have almost as much of a journey as any of the other four main characters.

All the characters were different and interesting too. And each had their own voice too, always a good thing.

I think that my favorite part of the novel though, was all the information about the different death practices of all the different peoples of the world that Faith studied. The information was put into the narrative in a way that made it seem seamless to me.

All in all I thought it was a great book. ( )