Second paragraph of third chapter:

It was a beautiful autumn day–the city glowed in the sunlight and the skies were that truly cloudless blue you never see back home. Sunshine is so precious here, though England is sunnier than I thought it would be, having been told so often about its greyness. I think it is because the greyness is so depressing that it makes the sunshine all the more spectacular.

A nice wee novella from Zen Cho, originally published way back in 2012 and being re-released this summer (I got an ARC from the author). It’s about a young Malaysian Chinese writer who moves to London in 1920 and has an affair with a chap who sounds very like H.G. Wells (indeed it starts with her critically reviewing one of his books, just like Rebecca West did to HGW). But she really has feelings for her Tamil editor; and pretty soon an extra complication looms… Told in diary form by the self-possessed and funny heroine, and well recommended. You can get The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo here, starting in July.

(Note: I will not generally review ARCs, please don’t send them to me if you don’t know me.)

Second paragraph of third chapter:

I could hot desk in the open plan area, as Arthur had suggested, but then I wouldn’t have such luxuries as shelves for my client files, or a permanent noticeboard, or a drawer to keep spare pens and Post-it notes in. Even sharing with Kawan Baik was better than that.

Another contemporary romance (following on from The Friend Zone Experiment), this has two young British Asian lawyers in London gradually figuring out their destiny, while also navigating the perils of white patriarchy in their profession and the ethics of dodgy political assignments. There are some glorious moments, including a particularly gruesome wedding chapter. The ending surprised me; I didn’t expect the characters to go (literally) there. Again, you know where the story is likely to end up emotionally from roughly page 3, but the journey is gripping and very entertaining. You can get Behind Frenemy Lines here.

Second paragraph of third chapter:

He hadn’t come for Alicia’s company, any more than he’d come for the exhibition itself. The name Dior meant as little to him as, he supposed, Shostakovich or Britten would to someone who didn’t care about classical music.

I know Zen of course both as a friend (I believe that we are the only Eastercon Guests of Honour with parents born in Malaysia) and for her intriguing fantasy novels and shorter fiction; I believe that this is her first venture into contemporary romance, a genre which is sometimes taken less seriously than it should be.

Renee Goh gets dumped by her pop star boyfriend on page 6, and bumps unexpectedly into her ex Ket Siong on page 26, and despite Renee’s experimental attempts to keep Ket Siong in the Friend Zone, we basically know where they will have got to by the end on page 341. I really enjoyed the ride; human beings are complex creatures, capable of misunderstanding their own best interests and getting confused about the signals they receive from others, and it’s entertaining (occasionally painful) to read.

As well as being a good empowering love story, with the dynastic intricacies of the Malaysian business community’s presence in London as backdrop, there is a grim subplot involving a massive political corruption scandal and human rights abuse, which peripherally touches both our lovers and also the Bad Boy rival for Renee’s affections. Renee manages to triumph here too, thanks to her ability to think outside the box, though it has an impact on her relations with her own family.

I am interested that the last Asian romance novel I read, Those Pricey Thakur Girls, also had a really grim political subplot underlying the girl-meets-boy main current. I don’t know how common this is for romance novels.

Anyway, this is a good one, and you can get it here.