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The Jasmine Trade (New Blood)
 
 
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The Jasmine Trade (New Blood) (Paperback)

by Denise Hamilton (Author) "I heard the ring through fuzzy sleep ..." (more)
2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Orion; New edition edition (1 Jul 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0752863932
  • ISBN-13: 978-0752863931
  • Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 13 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,186,512 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
Seventeen-year-old Marina Lu lies dead in her shiny status car in a suburban shopping centre car park, her two-carat diamond engagement ring refracting another shattered Los Angeles dream. Was her murder merely a carjacking gone bad, or is there more to the story? LA TIMES reporter Eve Diamond is determined to find out. Why was Marina, at such a young age, marrying twenty-four-year-old Michael Ho? Why is her father so reluctant to provide Eve with information about his daughter? And why would someone steal the dead girl's diary? Eve's investigations take her into the world of the 'parachute kids', rich Asian teens who are left to their own devices in California while their parents live and work in Hong Kong. She also discovers an even more tragic subculture, where destitute young Asian immigrants live in virtual sexual slavery. As Eve unravels the haunting details and closes in on her scoop, she finds that someone is prepared to kill to keep the story hidden.

About the Author
Denise Hamilton is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wired and Cosmopolitan. Her debut novel - 'The Jasmine Trade' - was shortlisted for the Creasey Dagger for Best First Crime Novel, and she has gone on to receive nominations for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.
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I heard the ring through fuzzy sleep. Read the first page
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Trade This in for a Better Debut, 4 Jun 2006
By Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Jasmine Trade (New Blood) (Hardcover)
Los Angeles Times journalist Eve Diamond is off on an unfortunately all to routine assignment. A young girl has just been killed in an attempted car jacking. To make the story even more tragic, 17-year-old Marina Chang was picking out bridesmaid dresses for her upcoming wedding to a family friend.

In getting the background for the story, Eve hears the term parachute kids. Unsure what that means, she turns to Mark Furukawa, occasional source and counselor for troubled teens. What she learns is eye opening. Rich Asian parents, wanting the best education for their kids, buy a house and basically leave their child in LA to attend school. The parents then return to Asia and run the family business.

Marina was a parachute kid. In order to more effectively write about them, Eve tries to befriend a couple. Tony Hsu especially attracts Eve's sympathy. On the outside, he seems nice, but inside he's hiding some serious secrets. Secrets that will put Eve in danger.

Meanwhile, the police still haven't found Marina's killer. Eve gets a hold of Marina's diary, but it's stolen that night. What did Marina know that someone wanted to keep hidden?

I have considered reading this series for some time. Author Denise Hamilton has gotten lots of praise for her work. My hesitation has always been the fact that it's a darker book then I would normally read. I finally decided to ignore that fact and read the book.

It was certainly darker then my normal cozy fair. That's not what bothered me, however. What bothered me was the plotting of the story itself. It wandered all over the place, seemingly with no real purpose. If I read the book for more then twenty minutes at a time, I found myself getting bored by elements that didn't seem at all related. By the time the story was done, enough topics had been touched on for at least two books. Everything does tie together at the end and there was a nice twist along the way, but it wasn't enough to save the story.

Adding to the problem was Eve's past. There are hints of some painful events in her past in early chapters, but instead of doling out the information as we need it, the story is stopped to give us flashbacks to these events. This happens twice in the first third, stopping what little progress the story was making. The events help explain Eve's character, but surely there was a better way to give us the information.

Not that everything in the book is poor. The characters, lead by Eve, are interesting. Tony is a truly sympathetic teen caught between several sets of expectations and his own desires. I kept pulling for him to do the right thing. Eve, while certainly out for a great story, is also concerned for those she encounters. In fact, she lets her concern get in the way of the story on more then one occasion. The writing style is excellent and the short chapters helped me read just a little bit further on several occasions.

Despite the praise I had heard for the series, the plot of this debut left much to be desired. I won't be going on to find out what happens next to Eve.
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