Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Rebellion
AUTHOR: Naomi Aoki
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 172 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 24, 2018
BLURB:
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.
REVIEW:
I’m always looking for historical romances that take place in locations and eras unfamiliar to me, so I was excited to snatch up this story that takes place in Shanghai in 1899 during the start of the Boxer Rebellion. I learned a lot about the uprising, but the actual romance part ended up leaving me a little cold.
Alfred is a Captain in the Royal Marines, but his job involves a lot more training and waiting than battle, which he is grateful for. While they are docked in Shanghai during the beginning of the anti-foreigner/Christian/Imperialist uprising in Northern China, he meets a powerful, beautiful Chinese man named Zhang at the Yu Gardens. They skirt around each other for days until giving into their mutual attraction, but as they fall deeper in love, tensions rise among the Royal Marines, the rest of the Eight Nations, and local Chinese militia. They find themselves separated amidst a brutal, unpredictable war, but they vow to make it back to each other, one way or another.
Though the book is well-researched and detailed when it comes to the historical facts and events of the Boxer Rebellion (complete with Further Reading at the end), many of the story elements fall short. I never feel like I know Alfred or what he wants, needs, or stands for. He’s generally a weak protagonist, always heartbroken and quietly moping. He has hardly any dialogue, even though he’s our POV character. I understand his attraction to the strong, powerful, intelligent Zhang, but their mutual lust segued so quickly into love that there was no real chemistry on the page. Sure, they have some excellent steamy love scenes—my favorite being one that involves an intricate jade phallus—but that’s about it. The quieter parts of the romance as well as the times alone with Alfred just feel hollow, like we’re missing large chunks of character development. A few moments of tenderness cannot create an epic love story.
There is also some awkward tension between the two men, as Zhang sees Alfred as the “wife” of the couple, as the submissive, receiving partner—not as equals, as Alfred thought. This is left hanging without resolution until a small line at the end, but in my opinion, that’s a big issue for a couple to overcome, not to mention how it left room for discussion of cultural differences and expectations that went unexplored. Maybe we’re supposed to believe that if they can survive war, they can survive anything. Either way, it left me unsettled.
There are some good, tense moments of action and battle that left me quickly turning the page, and in the end, I finished the book knowing a lot more about the time period than before. But I was hoping for a better romance to go along with the interesting history.
RATING: 
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