I bumped into this book in Borders yesterday. I was really interested in reading it. It was a biography of some sort of Pete Sampras, the fourteen-time Grand Slam winner, one whose record is still standing today. It goes into his early life when he started picking up tennis all the way until the day he retires. At the back of the book, there were write-ups on his rivals.

I flipped and started reading a few pages before I had to leave the bookstore. Before I left, I checked the price tag behind.

Guess what?

A gruesome, neck-wringing RM94.50! What in the world???!

How do you expect to cultivate healthy reading habits among Malaysians if books are going to be so expensive?

Not only that, this type of books is definitely not found in libraries. I think it is very unfair. The escalating living cost is going to choke us sooner or later.

Well, honestly, it has been choking most people.

‘THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE is a great story of love, loss and conflicting loyalties in a fascinatingly precarious moment of history. The wonderfully drawn and all-too-human characters struggle to survive in a world of danger and bewildering change, constantly choosing whether to embrace the past or to escape it, caught between cultures, ideologies - and the growing realization that only the frail reed of love is strong enough to withstand the destroying winds of time.’ - Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series.

The Russian Concubine is a sweeping epic love-story.

Exiled from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, the beautiful and fiery Lydia and her aristocratic mother have taken refuge in Junchow, China, in 1928. On the edge of destitution, Lydia uses her wits to survive and resorts to stealing.

She is saved from certain death by a young Chinese Communist, Chang An Lo, and together they are thrust into clashes with savage triads. Lydia and Chang fall in love and are swept up in a fight against prejudice and shame. Forced to face opium-running, betrayal and kidnap, their compelling attraction to each other is tested to the limits in this story of love and loss, secrets and lies.

Yup, this is what I am reading now. I am not even 20% through, so I can’t comment much. But if you are interested, do visit the author Kate Furnivall’s site.