Title: Remembrance of Blue Roses
Author: Yorker Keith
Publisher: BookBaby
ISBN: 13-978148356-219-3
Pages: 294
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Reviewed by: Susan Hart
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Pacific Book Review
Blue roses are truly a rarity in nature, revered for their scarcity. They are the perfect complement to the novel, Remembrance of Blue Roses, about an uncommon friendship that binds three people together in an atypical love story. Author Yorker Keith weaves an intriguing storyline against the backdrop of the United Nations organization which follows the lives of Hans and Yukari, a married couple, and Mark, their close companion, as they discover the tether to the past that ties them to each other.
What begins as a chance meeting between Hans and Mark, coworkers at the UN and intermittent friends with meeting Yukari, opens the door to this once-in-a-lifetime romance. Their mutual love of art brings them together. As the trio’s relationship unfolds, Keith’s comprehensive prose about classical music and fine art techniques sets the stage for the evolving deep love affair of this unconventional threesome. Keith drives the story through skillful writing, uniting them in their passionate artistic pursuits, helping us to see the three as a single unit.
As they unlock the door to their connected past, they come to believe that their friendship was predetermined. Yukari’s Japanese great-grandfather met Mark’s great-great grandmother in the U.S. President James Buchanan’s White House. Hans’ grandfather met Yukari’s father at Berlin University in West Berlin prior to World War II. There’s a delightful aha moment when they realize that fate has brought them together. They hug each other and exclaim in joyful glee, “Yaay! Incredible! We were destined to meet!” Their jubilance is charmingly authentic. Destiny may have brought them together, but an abiding devotion keeps them together — under the poetic title of the blue roses, analogous to the smoke blue flag of the UN that hovers over this romantic tale.
Author Yorker Keith’s knowledge of the UN, its protocols and policies is extensive, a boon for the armchair historian. As the story moves along, we are treated to some appealing peripheral characters who also work at the UN, all of whom provide Keith with an ongoing opportunity to showcase his familiarity with the organization’s global impact. He even sends Hans on a Peacekeeping mission as an emissary for the UN to the Republic of Bosnia to rediscover himself and his purpose. As Hans, through communications back home to Yukari and Mark, shares his Bosnian experience, Keith uses these missives to provide a thoughtful and insightful observation into the UN’s impact on the historical details of the rebuilding of this war-torn region.
Throughout the threesome’s unconventional relationship in Remembrance of Blue Roses, Keith’s credibility is heightened by his adroit storytelling approach. There is no moment when skepticism or disbelief overshadows the probability of this friendship. The premise that three people can love one other unconditionally and without enmity is a theme from which Keith does not stray.
Uniquely well written, Remembrance of Blue Roses is a contemporary window into the characters’ lifestyles, which will remain indelible as the beauty of a blue rose.
