A LeJOY Novel

Love Hurts alias Chinese Lover is a book for lovers written by a young westerner with firsthand experience in the Orient. Love, as many of us know it, is an act of giving. That giving sometimes hurts, in fact, hurts most times especially if not reciprocated. Love is give and take, we often hear.

Chinese Lover portrays a young Taiwanese lady who falls desperately in love with a westerner. She'd do anything and everything to gain his love, but as many other girls on the island of Taiwan and elsewhere have experienced, it's sometimes very complicated and risky, if not dangerous, to fall in love with someone from a totally different culture and background.

There is something intriguing about things that are foreign. Oftentimes, we prefer things from abroad. For some nebulous reason, we think these things are better made, have more value, quality and prestige. The same is sometimes true of foreign people. Girls might fall into the trap of entangling themselves in complex relationships that even they can't make head or tail of. The web is not only hard to weave but once woven, it's often hard to disentangle. Somehow, out of curiosity, maybe, girls think they'd get more out of a foreign relationship: that feeling, the romance, the exotic places, you name it. But most foreigners are guys on the run, many of whom are not ready to settle down. That's shifting sand for any marriage-minded young lady. Such a relationship is just too precarious for the tender-hearted eastern female.

In Chinese Lover Solanche makes this rather hazardous mistake. Her infatuation with a former English teacher of hers brings her the roller coaster tantrums. Initially obsessed with his panache, finesse, enthusiasm and joie de vivre, she later discovers that Larry is like most, if not all, of us: human. Larry has his flaws as well, the worst of it all being his failure to reciprocate Solanche's love.

We may all learn from this relationship; especially we girls: watch out; not every foreigner who kisses you that first night wants to stick around with you till kingdom come.

Veronica Chang / The Edge / Taipei, Taiwan

"Chinese Lover is a lucid account by a prolific writer. Great little read."

Laurel Smithson / San Diego

"Simply stated, a revealing no-put-downer. Ace in-flight reader."

Tom Jacobs / Columbus

"Chinese Lover makes me wanna go to Taiwan to look for a wife,"

Terry Jakes / LA

"Well written, poignant; almost sadistic."

James Boyle / London

"She found her heaven in him but his heaven was in someone else."

Lisa LaBelle / New York

"Sad, almost tear-rendering but humorous account."

Pierre LeVogue / L'Amour magazine

"This is my story!"

Pat Lu / Taipei

"Did I ever tell LeJOY what happened to me?"

Tricia Hsu / Kaoshiung