The Annual Host Convention! by Jonelle Patrick
Picture this. It’s a quiet Monday night in January. Usually the hosts
who work in the Zero Group’s bars would be giving their hair a
much-needed rest, kicking back to annihilate some video game zombies,
and ordering take-out. But tonight is different from all other Monday
nights. Tonight is The Annual Meeting!
In any business, it’s important to set production goals, vow to
outperform the graphs from last quarter, and boost sales, but in the
case of host clubs, this turns into a ballroom full of the hottest guys
in Kabuki-cho, getting pumped up to out-bling, out-drink and out-flirt
themselves in the new year! Let’s get out there and chug one for the
team, boys!
Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. Many thanks to my friend Kiichi-san, the clubs’ manager, who took this awesome picture!
Fallen Angel readers often ask me what it’s really like to go to a host club. If you’re curious too, here’s a slide show and answers to the TOP TEN QUESTIONS ABOUT HOST CLUBS:
Why do women go to host clubs?
What kind of women go to host clubs?
What’s it like to visit a host club
How expensive is it to go to a host club?What is a host club “champagne call”?
Can foreigners get into a host club?
How can I go to a host club?
How do I find a good host club?
Why do hosts dress like that? Everything you always wanted to know about host fashion.
A Day In The Life: What’s it like to be a host?
Nightshade
First in an all-new series of mysteries that could happen only in Tokyo…
It’s just another group suicide, thinks Tokyo Detective Kenji
Nakamura – until he sees the Goth Lolita sprawled in the back seat of
the late-model Lexus. Why would a doll-like eccentric dressed in black
ruffles and Mary Janes choose to kill herself with a man and woman old
enough to be her parents? The suicide note only adds to the mystery: it
apologizes for an unnamed disaster that hasn’t yet happened.
The next morning, Kenji finds part-time English interpreter Yumi Hata
camped in the police station lobby, insisting she has evidence her
Gothic Lolita friend was murdered.
The clock is ticking as they race to find the killer before the next victim is targeted…
Sneak peek - read the first four chapters of Nightshade.
NEW! Take a look at the Book Club Hot Topics for Nightshade. Give a great book club presentation with the thought-provoking discussion questions and 50+ image slideshow of the exotic people, places and things in the book!
Buy Nightshade from these online booksellers $4.99 (£2.66 in the UK, €2.77 in Europe, ¥378 in Japan)
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Nightshade was named one of five Thrillers Of The Month for December 2012 by e-thriller.com!
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“WOW…talk about culture shock! The writer moves you through the
streets & underground of Tokyo with a sure hand, and you’ll feel
transported to places both familiar & incredibly strange. I didn’t
want this one to end. Great characters woven into a terrific tale of
murder, fear & suspicion.”
– Amazon (Marilyn Swanson review)
“If you enjoy detective/mystery books, this one is well worth your
time. If you’re even remotely interested in modern Japanese society and
culture, it’s not to be missed. The story itself is easily as enjoyable
as any best seller in the genre, but where the author really shines is
her description of modern day Tokyo.”
–Libboo (Julie Adams review)
“…It’s a great story well-told and expertly written, the kind of
book where you are so immersed that you forget that the characters
aren’t real people that you actually know. …My only complaint about the
book is that it ended.
– Amazon (Linda Castellani review)
Buy Nightshade from these online booksellers $4.99 (£2.66 in the UK, €2.77 in Europe, ¥378 in Japan)
Don’t have a Kindle? Fear not! You can read
ebooks just as easily on devices you already use every day! Here are
easy directions and links to free apps to get you up and reading in less
than five minutes: How To Read eBooks Without A Kindle
Fallen Angel
The dangers of wealth and beauty emerge from the shadows in the latest Only in Tokyo Mystery…
Like a modern geisha, charming Hoshi makes a handsome living as the
#1 hostboy at Club Nova by lighting cigarettes, pouring champagne, and
whispering sweet nothings in the ears of women willing to pay him
thousands of yen for the pleasure of his company.
But the party’s over when Tokyo Detective Kenji Nakamura begins
looking into the death of one of Hoshi’s customers, a young woman found
dead at the foot of her apartment stairs after spending an evening with
him.
As his search for the killer leads him deep into the red-light
district of Kabuki-cho, the last person Kenji expects to run into is
part-time English translator Yumi Hata. But fear for her friend Coco has
drawn her into Club Nova, where champagne flows like water, and because
Yumi can get into places that Kenji can’t, she soon agrees to help him
with another murder investigation.
Kenji and Yumi chase the murderer from a love hotel to a hidden
museum where old family secrets unfold like a wooden puzzle box. They
soon find themselves in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a killer
who is ready to strike again…
•
My review
Patrick's descriptions of modern Japanese nightlife were easy to picture and contained information I had not previously known.
Fallen Angel has all the action, drama, and fashionable living. It also is just as detail-oriented.
The novel was set in the more male fashion driven:
1st-
Hoshi - The host club Club Nova in Kabuki-cho for a great part of the
book. It is a life of lavish luxury, and men making sure women feel
wanted. This is something all women long for. The amount of detail put
into these scenes are wondrously choreographed.
2nd - Kengi - the
policeman and he's conflicts between the politics in the the police
office and the politics that reflact on his work from the outside.
It
also delved more deeply into Kenji and Yumi's chemistry ridden, chaotic
attraction. I can understand the obligation of Yumi toward Ichiro
(through matchmaking), in conflict with her true emotional attachment.
For her, guilt is a grim companion, because of this fact. She wants to
do right by her family, and her family's future. She doesn't want to
impose or disappointment anyone.
I think that somewhere along the
story she steal the foucos... she is the the one who actually solving
the problem and introduce the solutions on silver plat to Kengi.
I
also like the teacher of Coco, her best friend lightheaded and funny in
her own way.Her figure resemble another conflict in Japan - their
liberal and the understanding attitude toward this dark world of the
Kabuki-cho which everybody use (men and women as one) from one side and
on the other side their contempt at the daylight. It is so easy to
increase our earning by take part in this world.
Myho is really
creepy, but she is another strong female character between other strong
females in the book like: Cherry which also support her family, saki-
Hoshi's wife, Ami- Ichiro's ex-girlfriend, Jun Matsuda- which manage the
Matsuda family business and Nobu cousin.
Sneak peek – read the first few chapters of Fallen Angel
Take a look at the Book Club Hot Topics for Fallen Angel. Give a great book club presentation with the thought-provoking discussion questions and 50+ image slideshow of the exotic people, places and things in the book!
Buy Fallen Angel from these online booksellers $4.99 (£2.66 in the UK, €2.77 in Europe, ¥378 in Japan)
•
“What Tony Hillerman does for Navajo culture and Donna Leon for Italy, Jonelle Patrick does for contemporary Tokyo.”
– Amazon (Paula Span)
“If you are looking for an enjoyable read, a clever little puzzle
and an exotic location, you will find much to entertain and inform you
in Fallen Angel.”
– crimefictionlover.com
“I really enjoyed reading this book. The mystery is very clever
and kept me guessing right along with the characters. Patrick’s
descriptions of modern Japanese nightlife were easy to picture…I always
like to learn something new when I read a book and this one fulfilled
that goal.”
– Goodreads (Ruth Girill)
Buy Fallen Angel from these online booksellers $4.99 (£2.66 in the UK, €2.77 in Europe, ¥378 in Japan)
Don’t have a Kindle? Fear not! You can read
ebooks just as easily on devices you already use every day! Here are
easy directions and links to free apps to get you up and reading in less
than five minutes: How To Read eBooks Without A Kindle
Idolmaker
In the wake of a deadly disaster, has a killer seized a perfect opportunity to commit the perfect crime?
An earthquake strikes Tokyo, and when the dust settles, it’s
discovered that the reason the Tabata Shrine’s head priest was late to
perform a wedding is because he was dead. Detective Kenji Nakamura is
assigned to investigate, but although all clues point to one of Japan’s
most idolized pop stars as the prime suspect, he knows that’s
impossible––the idol and her band were swept away in the tsunami
following the quake.
Meanwhile, part-time English translator Yumi Hata discovers a
shocking truth about the dead idol. As mourning fans whip themselves
into a media frenzy, can she and Kenji track down the killer who’s
desperate to protect the secret that will rock the Japanese
entertainment industry more powerfully than any earthquake?
Like the other books in the intriguing Only in Tokyo mystery
series,Idolmaker takes you behind closed doors into corners of Japan
where few foreigners dare to go, and introduces you to fascinating
characters you won’t soon forget.
•
Sneak peek – Read the first few chapters of Idolmaker.
Take a look at the Book Club Hot Topics for Idolmaker. Give a great book club presentation with the thought-provoking discussion questions and 50+ image slideshow of the exotic people, places and things in the book!
Buy from these online booksellers $4.99 (£2.66 in the UK, €2.77 in Europe, ¥378 in Japan)
•
“…full of piquant details about Japanese life, this is delightful escapist crime fiction at its finest.”
–Crime Fiction Lover “Five Women To Watch 2014″
“I so eagerly await each installment in the Only in Tokyo mystery
series, and Idolmaker was everything I was hoping for…Jonelle Patrick
takes the reader on an intimate journey into some of the most
fascinating aspects of contemporary Japanese culture… without
distracting from the main thrust of the books — supremely compelling
mysteries, with romance to boot.”
–Amazon review (J. Gutteridge)
“This series has always had the best, deftest way of making an
American reader, anyway this one, feel at home in deep-Japan–not tourist
Japan–and this book is no exception.”
–NetGalleys review (Katherine Catmull)
Don’t have a Kindle? Fear not! You can read
ebooks just as easily on devices you already use every day! Here are
easy directions and links to free apps to get you up and reading in less
than five minutes: How To Read eBooks Without A Kindle
Other books in the series:
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