BlAsian Summer Reads

By: Sam Cacas, Jul 10, 2008
Tags: Beyond Borders, Opinion |



If you asked what I did this summer besides write a sequel to BlAsian Exchanges and my BlAsian memoir, it would probably be reading and more reading. That’s what us writers do in between our writings — voraciously, of course. And one book on BlAsian romance I will be re-reading and recommending is The Lotus Blossom Chronicles (Parker Publishing), which contains two stories about enduring through hardship and finding love.



“Siren’s Seduction” is a BlAsian romance penned by Jax Cassidy, an Asian American, who also goes by the pen name of Cassidy Kent. Following a fatal accident resulting in the loss of his wife and future child, Niko Chow devolves into a spiraling loneliness that leads him to an alcohol habit. Fate, however, leads him to the charming and seductive Donovan Matthews, who has just lost her sister. While their BlAsian romance flourishes like the lotus blossom growing in Niko’s garden, a secret of Niko’s and a person from Donovan’s past test their love.


In Simone Harlow’s “Concubine,” set in 2185 A.D., an Arabic prince on the run named Asad Kuba winds up captured, bedded down and taken back to his master by the beautiful Nyssa Farris, a bounty hunter who must reconsider her number one rule of not capturing slaves in order to save her daughter, who is being held by the queen.


The Asian and black characters in these stories certainly bring an emerging twist to the romance and erotica market that typically ignores BlAsian relationships. Hopefully, writers like Cassidy and Harlow and publishers like Parker keep grooving with this trend.


Two other books on my recommended summer list include Gary Okihiro’s Island World: A History of Hawai‘i and the United States (University of California Press), which explores Hawaiians’ historical contributions, such as fighting in the Civil War and living in pre-Gold Rush California, and Eileen O’Brien’s The Racial Middle: Latinos and Asian Americans Living Beyond the Racial Divide, which analyzes the racial identity struggle of two non-black minorities that often challenges the black-white racial identifications of American society.
On the silver screen, the blog for Akira’s Hip-Hop Shop (AKIRA'S HIP HOP SHOP), which I talked about in last month’s column, has revealed that a DVD of the short version of the film will be out soon. Word on the street is that “soon” could be this month. Keep checking the blog for details as well as future screenings, including August 6 to 9 at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival.


On a contemporary BlAsian history note, check out this BBC online article titled “South Africa Chinese Become Black”: http://snipurl.com/2v785.


Sam Cacas is the author of BlAsian Exchanges. View his blogs at http://blasian exchangesanovel.blogspot.com and Beyond Borders.

lol i've never seen a jasian romance (Jewish/asian romance, )

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Once you go Asian, you'll never go caucasian