The Commoner, Book 3 of Angie and Christie's Reading and Blogging Project

Imagine finding someone who really clicks with you; they're accomplished, independent, educated, and very much a forward-thinking individual. You're in love, and you want to make this person the one you spend the rest of your life with.

Now imagine you're the Crown Prince of Japan. Your life is a rigid, traditional one where the things you value so much in the girl you love are seen as flaws by everyone else in your world. Making this girl your wife would mean completely destroying everything about her that makes you love her in the first place, but you can't bear the thought of marrying anyone else. Would you marry her anyway?

The Commoner is the story of Haruko, the beautiful, intelligent, athletic, headstrong, and only daughter of a wealthy businessman. Haruko comes of age in the midst of social upheaval in post-WWII Japan. Her country is rebuilding and redefining itself, struggling to arrive the modern age while clinging to the thousands-year-old traditions the war interrupted. She meets the Crown Prince during a tennis match, where, to everyone's mortification, she beats him. After this, the Crown Prince continues inviting Haruko to play tennis with him, and their romance begins.

The Crown Prince sends his trusted adviser, Dr. Watanabe, to discuss the possibility of marriage with Haruko's parents. Horrified, they initially refuse the Prince's requests, worried for their daughter's future unhappiness at court due to her low birth. Her father sends her on a trip to Europe to give her the chance to think on the Prince's proposal. It's a historic request; though their family is wealthy, they are not a part of Japan's aristocracy. She chooses to accept, beginning a long life of sacrifice and suffering.

Initially, the book is an unlikely love story between a common woman and the Crown Prince of Japan. Once Haruko accepts the role as Crown Princess, a role she is ill-prepared for, the story shifts to one that tells the difficulties faced by a person transcending the traditional caste system. Due to her rise in social stature, she loses her family and friends. Her mother in law hates her. Her ladies-in-waiting resent her for being elevated above them, in defiance of their perception of the natural order of things. Her husband does his best to shield her from the prejudice of the court, but as the future Emperor of Japan, he has little time to devote to his wife's protection. Alone, Haruko suffers decades of bullying, mental abuse, constant criticism, and perpetual pressure to embody standards she'll never be allowed by those who consider themselves to be her betters to attain.

Shortly after her marriage, Haruko gives birth to a son, who is taken from her after only a few months to be raised by a legion of nurses and tutors. The nurses, under orders from the Empress, do everything they can to deny Haruko visitation with her son. Already suffering from postpartum depression, the taking of her son is the final straw that sends her into a nervous breakdown. She doesn't speak to anyone for a year.

Twenty years later, Empress Haruko is faced with a difficult decision. Her son the Crown Prince is in love with a commoner, a successful business woman named Keiko. The daughter of an ambassador, she has traveled the world, speaks five languages, and has a bright future ahead of her. She has refused him to pursue her career. He vows to leave the country with no heir if he cannot have her. Haruko, wanting her son to be happy, knows better than anyone what Keiko will have to give up, and the unhappiness she'll suffer if she accepts.

Imagine your son is in love with someone he really clicks with. . . she's accomplished, independent, educated, and very much a forward-thinking individual. You know that helping your son make this woman the one he spends the rest of his life with will destroy everything about her that makes him love her in the first place, and so much more. It will cage her and slowly destroy her as a person. Would you choose the happiness of your son, or would you spare her your fate?