We first met Kyle, Lord Maxwell, in The Wild Child, the first book in this series. Kyle has set off to explore the world and his last stop is China. His dream is to visit the Temple of Hoshan, but traveling in China is restricted to Canton. Troth Mei-Lin Montgomery is the daughter of a Scottish father and Chinese mother. She is disguised as a man who works as an interpreter for her master. She agrees to take Kyle but there is a lot of danger for them both.
The story is told in a series of flashbacks when Troth arrives in England to tell his family of Kyle's death. The trip didn't go as planned, but Kyle married her before his execution in order to keep her safe. Kyle was very arrogant in the first book, but he's mellowed now, still despondent over his first wife's death but changing from his travel experiences. Troth is wonderful; she has so many guises and she's so smart. I loved learning about the Chinese side of her and later her Scottish side.
This is another good book in a great series. ( )

2013 reading: Shocking as it may seem, I like this book for a lot of reasons, but the most important one is the accessible nature of the spirituality as it is described in the book. I like the characters and I like it, especially, that they act like real people (we don't always say what we are really thinking and assume we know what the other wants) and evolve. ( )

Lady Wombat says:

As with Wild Child, another beautifully written book. This one has a much less preposterous premise, which made it more enjoyable to read. The details of life for Englishmen in China during the early part of the 19th century was fascinating. The novel's ending, though, echoed the ending of Wild Child far too much. Can't lovers get together without being threatened with death from a villain who hasn't been a part of the plot until only a handful of pages until the end??

Nice soothing romance, where everything always turns out well in the end. This was sort of a sequel to Wild Child; Dominic's brother Kyle. In the Wild Child I thought I'd find Kyle more engaging than Dominic, but somehow that didn't happen. His surpressed 'uncivilized' side never really emerged. Dominic was much better drawn, much more human.I had trouble sympathizing with Kyle. It's hard to root for a hero who can't make up his mind whether he loves the heroine or not, and keeps trying to encourage her to get lost. I kept wanting to slap him. ( )

1. La pazzia del Cuore http://www.anobii.com/books/La_pazzia_del_cuore/01bdcc04e5d435deab/ 2. La donna di giada ( )