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The Last Concubine
The Last Concubine
Dec 31, 2025 2:01 AM

Author:Lesley Downer

The Last Concubine

Japan, 1865, the women's palace in the great city of Edo.

Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, is chosen to be his concubine.

But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place and there is not even a word for 'love'.

Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her own origins - a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her ....

Reviews

A perfect summer read

—— Easy Living

A perfect beach read

—— Elle

A splendid romp … pack this one for the beach

—— She

If anyone deserves resuscitation, he does... As a teenager, I read and reread my sister's long shelf of Maughams. What I enjoyed was their atmosphere: the brooding, sensual, sinister mood of exotic locations, where his characters seemed always on the verge of mania and where no-one behaved nearly so well as they were expected to

—— Rosemary Goring , Herald

This is one of the most compelling novels I've read in ages, a triumph of style and perception

—— Joseph O' Connor , Irish Times

A hot-tongued, howling wolf of a book, strange and tender, luscious and cool, frisky as a pup but with a mouthful of fangs. Once bitten, I was smitten by its beauty

—— Joseph O'Connor

This free-verse novel about the lusts and longings and furies of a group of lycanthropes in Southern California may just turn out to be one of the literary highlights of the decade. It's odd, intriguing, absorbing, at times beautiful and always unique. At last a writer has appeared who is unafraid to do something new with an old form. I wolfed it down

—— Niall Griffiths

Toby Barlow is a true original. Sharp Teeth is darkly funny, witty, philosophical in its quirky, deceptive way, technically accomplished and strangely moving. It's eccentric and original, but it might just get the readership it deserves. It's a fine book

—— John Burnside

Not for the faint-hearted

—— Financial Times

Gripping

—— Independent

Vigorous, enjoyably bloodthirsty, Sharp Teeth would make a stunning graphic novel

—— Guardian

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry

He exhausts superlatives

—— Stephen Fry

The handsome bindings are only the cherry on top of what is already a cake without compare

—— Evening Standard
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