https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2358132230

Apparently this needs to be 100 characters long.

Three Gorges Dam

First I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Three Gorges Dam is packed with thrilling politically charged events on a panoramic scale. Discord amongst the many factions of the Chinese regional landscape including Buddhist monks in Tibet and the Muslims in the Uighur region provide ample opportunity for unrest and eruption. Terrorist attacks occur in Beijing, along the Silk Road, in Hong Kong, and culminate at the world's largest hydroelectric plant - the Three Gorges Dam.

American energy consultant Michael Brannigan and Australian geophysicist Kylie Ryan fall in love while on business in China. Their fates become transformed by the upheaval occurring all over the country.

I thoroughly enjoyed the political and cultural aspects of this book. I would have preferred to see these developed to a much greater extent. I found the focus on the personal relationship between Brannigan and Ryan too extensive and trite. A bit more editing would also provide a more polished result.

Overall I enjoyed this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Smith Publicity for an advance readers copy of this book. I predict that this first time novelist could have a successful future in writing action thrillers.

The action and disaster scenes are powerful. However I felt the tension was diluted by too many locations and by supporting characters not fully developed beyond their names and/or nationalities and political agendas.

The plot I felt was too ambitious with storylines too far ranging. I felt I was not as fully engaged in parts of the story as I should have been. Ranging from Tibet with its fighting monks and civilian dissidents, to the Uighur region with its separatists around Kashgar, to the Chinese president and his advisers and staff in Beijing, to the 3 Gorges Dam. Also the settings move to Shanghai, with scenes in Hong Kong, Sydney and also touching on a couple of other Asian countries outside China.

I felt that Brannigan made a well developed and believable hero, and there was a touching love story with many obstacles. With Brannigan absent in some chapters I found my interest waning.. I thought those chapters belonged in another book where the various rebels and their beliefs were more strongly portrayed. As I had travelled in the Uighur region in the far west of China and through Tibet, I hoped to read more about those oppressed people, but that is for a separate book, hopefully by the same author.