Book Review: The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton (Eve Diamond #1)

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Interesting, fully developed characters

Cons: Plot wanders all over the place and lacks focus

The Bottom Line:

Good characters here

But they can't hide a bad plot

Don't bother with book

Trade This in for a Better Debut

Los Angeles Times journalist Eve Diamond is off on an unfortunately all to routine assignment. A young girl has just been killed in an attempted car jacking. To make the story even more tragic, 17-year-old Marina Chang was picking out bridesmaid dresses for her upcoming wedding to a family friend.

In getting the background for the story, Eve hears the term parachute kids. Unsure what that means, she turns to Mark Furukawa, occasional source and counselor for troubled teens. What she learns is eye opening. Rich Asian parents, wanting the best education for their kids, buy a house and basically leave their child in LA to attend school. The parents then return to Asia and run the family business.

Marina was a parachute kid. In order to more effectively write about them, Eve tries to befriend a couple. Tony Hsu especially attracts Eve's sympathy. On the outside, he seems nice, but inside he's hiding some serious secrets. Secrets that will put Eve in danger.

Meanwhile, the police still haven't found Marina's killer. Eve gets a hold of Marina's diary, but it's stolen that night. What did Marina know that someone wanted to keep hidden?

I have considered reading this series for some time. Author Denise Hamilton has gotten lots of praise for her work. My hesitation has always been the fact that it's a darker book then I would normally read. I finally decided to ignore that fact and read the book.

It was certainly darker then my normal cozy fair. That's not what bothered me, however. What bothered me was the plotting of the story itself. It wandered all over the place, seemingly with no real purpose. If I read the book for more then twenty minutes at a time, I found myself getting bored by elements that didn't seem at all related. By the time the story was done, enough topics had been touched on for at least two books. Everything does tie together at the end and there was a nice twist along the way, but it wasn't enough to save the story.

Adding to the problem was Eve's past. There are hints of some painful events in her past in early chapters, but instead of doling out the information as we need it, the story is stopped to give us flashbacks to these events. This happens twice in the first third, stopping what little progress the story was making. The events help explain Eve's character, but surely there was a better way to give us the information.

Not that everything in the book is poor. The characters, lead by Eve, are interesting. Tony is a truly sympathetic teen caught between several sets of expectations and his own desires. I kept pulling for him to do the right thing. Eve, while certainly out for a great story, is also concerned for those she encounters. In fact, she lets her concern get in the way of the story on more then one occasion. The writing style is excellent and the short chapters helped me read just a little bit further on several occasions.

Despite the praise I had heard for the series, the plot of The Jasmine Trade left much to be desired. I won't be going on to find out what happens next to Eve.