Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Explicit content warning

05/27/22 • 72 min

Dani and Sher take a short break from the Fantasy Romance genre and cover a Historical Fiction novel, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. The book follows a Korean family through several generations and the struggles which they went through to ultimately survive after immigrating to Japan during the Japanese colonization. The story, set in the early 1900's, mainly follows Sunja who becomes pregnant by a wealthy stranger who offers her the world but a less than ideal life....considering he is already married. She later accepts a marriage offer from a sickly minister passing through to Japan, and leaves behind the only family she has ever known.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Author: Min Jin Lee
Dani and Sher were able to relate to many of the themes within this book and we really wanted to have this raw discussion about those themes and share our honest feelings about them. Of course, as always we do not always agree with one another, but that is what makes these discussions fun for us.
Trigger Warning: This book and podcast episode do discuss themes such as suicide and other potentially triggering topics.
Thank you, as always for listening to "Date with a Novel"

Previous Episode

Blood and Ash Series: Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout

In this episode of Date with a Novel, we follow up on the Blood and Ash series, which of course we binge-read back to back. These books were a could not put down. Shocking cliff hangers and more which kept us not wanting to wait to read the next ones. Moves and plot twist we did not see coming. And some we should have.
This podcast episode covers the third book in the Blood and Ash series:

Crown of Gilded Bones

We follow up with Poppy and Hawke/Cass and their relationship, duty and more. And not to mention Kieran who is the best wing-man and we love the bromance/friendship forming with the main characters. J.L. is toeing a line and we want her to fully cross it. We know you want to.

From world-building, spicy scenes, the banter and more. This book had us laughing and smiling like idiots while taking us on emotional roller coaster. The intricate woven, ever developing story line make the story intriguing and J.L. pays off foreshadowing and little hints really well. We could not predict what was going to happen next and that is the true testament to a great writer. One who can give hints early on, that seemingly mean nothing then pay them off in big ways later on while making sense to the storyline they've been weaving.
Genre includes:

Fantasy Romance
Supernatural
Adult
High Fantasy
Fiction

Also, check out the prequel series: A Shadow in the Ember, the prequel knowledge makes this series even better.
We will cover Book 4: War of Two Queens in a future podcast episode.

Next Episode

Blood and Ash Series: The War of Two Queens by J.L. Armentrout | Book Discussion

Dani & Sher continues with the fourth installment of the Blood and Ash series, A War of Two Queens. Things get a bit steamy in this installment and we have a few unexpected criticisms of this anticipated book 4 of the series. As always, Dani & Sher give a brief spoiler free book review, and then dive into the spoiler filled discussion of the book. This time we spare no time diving right into the juicy details in the spoiler section. We hope you enjoy.