The Hidden Moon

The Hidden Moon

By Jeannie Lin

A well-to-do lady in the later years of the Tang Dynasty investigates a murder with imperial connections with the help of a street-wise scoundrel. 

This one I liked very much at the outset, not least because of the location and time of the setting, which I don't have much exposure to.  It made me look up Tang Dynasty clothing styles!  However, the main character, Wei wei, wasn't that compelling to me, and I kinda wished we'd focused more on the political intrigues than the romance.  Although I can see objectively why Gao might like her (educated, beautiful, headstrong) her personality just never quite meshed for me. I ended up moving through the back half of the book fairly quickly.

I liked Magistrate Li quite a lot - he may not be as swashbuckling as Gao, but I like a guy who does his job well and honorably.  That's sometimes the problem in these books - since the author knows they're doing a series, they make the side characters too compelling.  Here, the third character in this love triangle (even though neither Li nor Wei Wei wants to get married to each other) was, to me, more worth following than the two mains.  Perhaps he'll have his own story someday! 

 And even though it was the basis for the connection and romance, the murder investigation got wrapped up so quickly I thought it was a fake out, and at least one story-line seemed like it got dropped completely (so the last assassin that Magistrate Li and Gao were going to draw out by using themselves as targets was... non existent? And we never really find out if the nephew was a co-conspirator or snitch? The other person meeting with Song Yi was.... not someone important to the plot?).  The murder was also a little hard to follow because of my unfamiliarity with Imperial China's social structure and laws - motives and relationships could have been explained a little more for my taste.