Perfect Harmony

Rating:
Summary: Great read, improved Barbara Wood 'style', but nitpicky prob
Review: In the classical Barbara Wood style of mystery, odd family makeup, romance, technobabble, and a nice blend of time turning, she has created, quite simply, one heck of a great read. Fans of any books written by her will find the this book to incorporate every style she has used so far, and with a rather good blending of each style in to one another. The story line keeps your attention and drags you through the night reading till 3:00 in the morning (Actually happened!). A mystery builds upon another mystery and keeps you on your toes as you wonder what exactly is going on. It even begins and ends well-written, something that tends to lack in books these days. There are some flaws in this book that lowered the rating from 10 to 8. Incorrect usage of pin-ying ("Aiii-yah" is used incorrectly in areas and also some pinying errors in writing the words, especially around the numbers.) and a rather poor portrait of chinese culture to what is the western stereotype or imagination (Like medival stories overemphasizing knight's honor). But that's nitpicking. What will bother the reader is the ocassional problems within the story itself and the confusing family buildup. Fans of Mrs.Wood will discover the family buildup to be more confusing then previous books. There are also illogical actions that couldn't happen in its setting (Marrying someone who has a wife already?), and missing information about what happened to so-and-so character that might help the reader understand what is going on. Certain plot elements weren't even tied up, but the reader may suspect that was done on purpose. Overall, the plotline does a good job of covering the problems well enough to make this a great book that will definately keep you interested enough to finish the book to the end.

Rating:
Summary: a very good read
Review: One of the things that puts Barbara Wood into a class of her own in historic, adventure and now also in biotech thriller writing: her thorough background research. She puts a lot of work into creating a complex and rich historical as well as atmospheric background for her lead characters. And she does it quite well for characters from foreign cultural background: the main character in "Perfect Harmony" is Charlotte Lee, a young Chinese-American woman. She is the CEO of Harmony Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company specializing in Chinese herbal medicine. As dramatic events unfold in present time and Charlotte sees her company, her professional existence and her life threatened, Wood unfolds the story of Charlotte's family and the history of the company in an equally engaging parallel storyline, and drama picks up on the mystery as well as the romantic level. Barbara Wood is the master of generation-spanning scenarios and great family sagas, as she has demonstrated before in her Egyptian tale "Virgins of Paradise" and the Australian saga "Dreamtime". Even when her sometimes a bit overly dramatic and predictably romantic heroines every once in a while come across as old-fashioned, this does not compromise the overall quality of her storytelling. Wood is a wonderful storyteller and is performing at her best in "Perfect Harmony". Pick it up, kick off your shoes and don't plan anything else for the weekend.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read!!
Review: The book was wonderful. The story within a story worked very well. With so many twists and turns, nothing and no one are what they seem. This story happens within 12 hours, which is amazing in itself. I loved Charlotte, Perfect Harmony, Gideon, and Jonathon. This book is a must read.