When the Emperor was Divine was the required reading for the college where I work and although I do think it was a good choice, I feel that there are other novels out there which tell this story better. (Such as Snow Falling on Cedars, and this story wasn’t even the main storyline in that book.)
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this book and I did not get along. It wasn’t bad, per say, but it definitely wasn’t good. It was a very short read and I read it in three sittings on the train to and from work, but there was just something about it that I didn’t enjoy.
I’m starting to think that it might be related to the fact that it was chosen as the required reading and I felt that it wasn’t very challenging. I do believe it highlight’s a portion of World War II which many people aren’t aware of, or never learned about, but the writing style and the novel were very basic. Given I didn’t attend the speaker series, this could be a total misinterpretation of the novel, but I feel that a required reading for college students should be more challenging. However, that being said there were parts of the novel that were really well done, so don’t think it was a completely horrible work.
After thoroughly enjoying 
Although I enjoyed this book I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as James’ 
Nearly two full years later I finally got around to reading The Darcys and the Bingleys, and thankfully it was not at ALL what I expected. I mean it does help that Elizabeth and Darcy have a son named Geoffrey in this novel, so OF COURSE it’s going to get my vote! The blurb made me think this book might be more of a raunchy sequel to 
What a fun novel! I am so glad I stumbled across this novel and I cannot wait to read more of Syrie James’ works. I can’t remember where I first read about it or why I thought I had to read it, but I checked it out of the library last month and have waited patiently to read it as I trekked through