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It was so rare that strangers came to their village. She stood there with sweat pouring down her back wishing her hair wouldn’t keep falling over her face like it did. He had a pleasant expression and seemed particularly still, as if supremely comfortable in this heat and in this world. He remained at the perimeter watching her. “Fetch the tea,” she said and he went running to the stove. Her little cousin was not yet corrupted by his father’s laziness.

The boy came eagerly running at her call. Unfortunately the town riffraff stood just behind him, grinning and poking at each other over some boyish joke only they found humorous. He had the high cheekbones of the people of the north and stood with his shoulders back, lean and tall. The stranger wore a gray robe, but that was the only thing plain about him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see someone had stopped just beyond the line of the wooden benches. And Uncle would still be growing fat, napping in the shade.Ī tingle of awareness pricked against her neck.

If she planted a seed today, she reckoned she’d still be here selling noodles by the time the tree grew tall enough to provide shelter. He at least had the shade of a tree to duck under. She wiped her brow and looked over at Chang’s tofu stand at the end of the street with envy. Uncle made her stand outside during the hottest part of the afternoon, even when there were no customers. Mei Lin could feel the strands of hair slipping from her knot, tickling against her neck. Note: The Taming of Mei Lin features Ai Li’s ( Butterfly Swords) grandparentsīuy: Harlequin | Amazon | B&N | Powell’s | Kobo | Waterstones | ARebooks | iTunes A man she’s willing to surrender to in every way…. In captivating swordsman Shen Leung, Mei Lin finally sees a man she wants to marry. She has bested everyone who has so far tried to teach her a lesson…until a handsome stranger comes to her village. *A quick note to add that, Shen Leung is actually written down below as “Shen Liang” as Leung is Cantonese in usage.Faced with a proposal from a man she despises, impetuous Mei Lin makes a daring declaration: she will only marry the man who can defeat her in a sword fight. Thus the heroine of Butterfly Swords has a surname of “Shen” and her given name is “Ai Li”. Also, the given name can be a single character or multiple characters. Please note that the surname appears first.

If there’s a mistake here, please let me know so I can correct it. These are, to my knowledge, the appropriate names for the characters. I do confess that I don’t know Mandarin (and would really like to learn!). I chose not to put in accent marks over the names in the actual text as I felt they would distract Western readers, but it may be of interest to readers who know Mandarin to see the pronunciations as I intended. I’ve received questions from several readers asking me about the actual Chinese characters for the names used in Butterfly Swords as well as the other books.