#FridayFiveChallenge THE GIFT OF RAIN by Tan Twan Eng #FridayReads

Welcome to my Friday Five Challenge

Get yourself a cuppa and give yourself 5 minutes. (Use your own pic or copy mine or anything else like a clock/ stopwatch etc)

In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions from small postage stamp size book covers (Thumb-nails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they really spend making that buying decision?

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier,

2) Randomly choose a category,

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,

4) Read the book Bio/ Description for this book,

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,

6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?

(then write a little analysis about your decision)

With everyone rushing around Christmas shopping this week my search term was “The Gift Of….”

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Book Description

Penang, 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. The enigmatic Endo is bound by disciplines of his own and when the Japanese invade Malaya, threatening to destroy Philip’s family and everything he loves, he realises that his trusted sensei – to whom he owes absolute loyalty – has been harbouring a devastating secret. Philip must risk everything in an attempt to save those he has placed in mortal danger and discover who and what he really is. With masterful and gorgeous narrative, replete with exotic and captivating images, sounds and aromas – of rain swept beaches, magical mountain temples, pungent spice warehouses, opulent colonial ballrooms and fetid and forbidding rainforests – Tan Twan Eng weaves a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love.

Number of reviews; 439 Amazon Uk, 626 Amazon US

Price; Kindle £4.07 or $6.15

Would I Buy or PASS? ……BUY

Analysis

I picked this because the title worked with my search term, the book cover background of blue suggests water, the white/silver leaves dominate and you have to look hard to find suggestions of rain drops falling into the pool of water where the fish swim. The book description does intrigue me, I like tales of how people coped during war. The number of reviews across Amazon make it look promising too. The price is rather high for a competitive kindle book, it’s been out for a few years and the price might reflect it’s early popularity. I see it was long listed for the Man Booker award back in 2007. It must still be selling pretty well because it has 4 new reviews on Amazon Uk in November 2015 and 25 new reviews on Amazon US. This will be only a percentage of those who have read the book who don’t write reviews.

Here are links to other bloggers who took up the challenge this week.

Barb found children’s books to read to her adorable Grandchild – http://barbtaub.com/2015/12/11/beats-me-claude-fridayfivechallenge-from-rosieamber-santas-little-balls/comment-page-1/#comment-140489

Shelley went in search of mince pies and found a violin http://shelleywilsonauthor.com/2015/12/11/would-you-buy-or-pass-the-christmas-violin-fridayfivechallenge/comment-page-1/#comment-1258

Cathy found a book about a young boys discovery of the world http://betweenthelinesbookblog.com/2015/12/11/fridayfivechallenge-buy-or-pass-i-am-david-by-anne-holm-histfic-ya/comment-page-1/#comment-3452

Liz has found a FREE short story https://lizannelloyd.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/fridayfivechallenge-10/comment-page-1/#comment-441