Sighing Woman Tea
Welcome to Viridis, a tiny island tucked away in a vast ocean, home to a closely-knit community and a substance more precious and costly than gold – Sighing Woman Tea. While their much-sought-after tea is their pride and joy, the islanders are largely naïve as to how much danger this valuable commodity is capable of stirring up. When native-born islander Figas returns home from his studies abroad in predictive mathematics, his attempts to warn the community of looming disaster go largely unheeded. Until the day Commander Prescott and the 125th Expeditionary Force land on their shores and try to seize the island’s high ground. Ostensibly there to ensure no terrorists are using the island as a base, it’s clear that the intruders are mostly interested in securing the means to produce Sighing Woman Tea to their benefit. Now Uncle Sun, Beba, Zeno, Herbie, Aunti Lan, Tsani, and the rest of the Viridis islanders will need to call on every drop of strategy, cunning, and mischief at their disposal to outsmart their unwanted visitors, and reclaim their home.
As a reader, few things hook me into a book faster than great character development, which Sighing Woman Tea has in spades. Seiler really knocked it out of the park when he created the caste of quirky, stubborn, philosophical, and sometimes-intentionally, sometimes-unintentionally humorous Viridis islanders. When the story’s on track it moves with a steady rhythm, but be warned. Sometimes the track wobbles, or disappears altogether. At which point, the reader must take a leap of faith, and believe that there’s a net waiting to catch them up at some point further along the road. Happily, this is mostly what happens. This is Seiler’s debut novel, and I’d have no hesitation in picking up his next book enthusiastically.
Author | |
---|---|
Star Count | 4/5 |
Format | Trade |
Page Count | 388 pages |
Publisher | Xlibris |
Publish Date | 21-Jan-2015 |
ISBN | 9781499063639 |
Bookshop.org | Buy this Book |
Issue | OCtober 2015 |
Category | Popular Fiction |
Share |
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.