Whenever you meet someone new, conversations will always drift to: what you do, where you work or what you are studying. For me these have always led to interesting conversations and wide-eyed expressions when I mention that I studied Chinese. Once over their initial shock – because why would you study a foreign language – they’ll ask in a stage whisper, “Isn’t that hard?”. I have my response down pat these days – a shrugging my shoulders as I say, “Only when you try to learn it at the same time as Japanese.” And I assure it can be difficult to learn both at once, or at least from a reading/writing perspective. I had more than one embarrassing moment in class where I’d be reading out a passage in Chinese only to read one character in Japanese instead. For all the similarities of meanings the characters have between the two languages, the readings and usage of them is different.

Of course, they just stand there and blink at me, maybe wondering if I was a little mad and I have wondered that myself on the odd occasion when I’ve tried to switch between the languages to get homework done. I do elaborate, explaining that speaking Chinese, grasping the differing tonal sounds of words and the unfamiliar consonants can be challenging. But then again, is English any better? No… not really. Speaking Chinese didn’t faze me too much so long as I could remember the words or hear the tones when someone spoke to me. Reading/Writing came a little easier, except for the annoying issue of being able to read some characters; write others or only knew the English or Japanese translation. Often it was the transposing of written verbs like, run/walk that I stumbled on as they don’t use the same character for those verbs in Chinese as they do in Japanese.

And grammar… tough enough in English at the best of times for native speakers but it was definitely easier in Chinese than in Japanese – Japanese has so many alterations to the verbs and layers of formal language that I struggled to fully grasp.

For Alfred, in Rebellion, learning Chinese would have difficult especially as he was trying to self-teach in private. Writing/reading the language would’ve been a little easier so long as he could find dictionaries and grammar guides for Mandarin – as that was what Zhang predominately spoke – in Shanghai. The hardest part would be procuring one without drawing attention to himself, with most bought by missionaries or engineers who’d decided not to employ the services of an English-speaking Chinese servant. But his decision; desire to learn Chinese so as not to rely solely on Zhang speaking English for me was one of the pivotal moments in the story and almost felt more romantic than when they exchanged ‘I love you.’

1899, political tensions are rising with the emergence of the Boxer Movement in Northern China, straining ties between the Chinese Imperial Government and the Eight Nations with stakes in the country. As a Captain in the Royal Marines, Alfred Cartwright is deployed to Shanghai, where he discovers more than he’d dared to dream of – Love. Not even the struggles with language or the fear of reprisals if their relationship is found out, can stop Alfred from falling for the Chinese man he encounters. But as the ant-foreigner sentiment of the Boxer Movement grows in strength, their relationship will be put to the test.


Where do Alfred’s loyalties lie? With the man he loves or his country, as they stand opposite each other on a battlefield neither can escape.

Naomi would love to runaway to Japan or China and live there for a few years… but she can’t. Instead she goes there in her books, hoping to drag the reader into a world they’ve never been to before.


Historical. Contemporary. Time offers no constraint to the stories she writes, happily dabbling in both so long as there is a happy ending.


She is a mother of three teenage children, one of whom loves to tell people that her mother writes romance stories about gay men just to see their reaction. While she could never claim to be fluent, she has just completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Chinese, with minors in Creative Writing and Japanese.


Her stories are based predominantly in Japan or China and her historical stories often involving time periods or situations not often talked about with her characters often being actively involved in the events occurring around them.


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