Song of the Silk Road - Fast, Steamy, but not my Cup of Tea

Song of the Silk Road by Mingmei Yip is a fast read. It covers some wonderful aspects of the Chinese culture and beautiful descriptions of geography along the Silk Road. That’s where my admiration ends. Lily Lin is the main character of the story. She’s a struggling writer who is involved with her married professor. She receives a mysterious offer from an aunt she never knew she had. Lily is told she must travel the Silk Road and follow specific instructions and she will be rewarded with $3 million.

Lily decides to take on the too-good-to-be-true challenge and heads for the Silk Road. Some of her adventures are interesting but most everything that she experiences is, well, slightly unbelievable. I loved the explanations of the culture and ways of the Chinese, but a good part of this book seems to be contrived to “fit” into the storyline.

There’s a great deal of romance and “just plain old sex” in the story. Lily seems a bit of a fly-by-night to me. I’m sure anyone who is into steamy sex and romances would enjoy this book. No, I’m not a prude but this story goes a bit overboard. It could have been written with lots of great descriptions of the culture and history of the Silk Road and with less of the sex scenes. But all in all, the story would still seem rather far fledged.

If you want a quick read and can look beyond the silliness of some of the storyline, you may well enjoy this book. Personally, I’m glad I read it but am rather unhappy I actually paid money for it.