Janine W. (alibrian) reviewed on + 249 more book reviews
I loved this book. " May well become a classic. Not since The Good Earth have I been so caught up in an adventure in a strange land" Tony Hillerman
"From the superstition-bound peasant villages to the perfumed decadence of the Forbidden City, Manchu China was a land of extremes; barbarism and elegance, poverty and lavish wealth. It's people lived in near enslavement to the emperor. Then came Hung, a charismatic new leader who promised hope to the masses--an Empire of Heaven on earth. But to Rulan, the proud daughter of a village spirit woman, Hung is a frightening stranger whose life she saved with her healing gift on a violent, demon-haunted night. Afire with the rebel cause, Rulan nonetheless hides from Hung's growing obsession with her. She serves as a spy in the house of the great Manchu general Li, where she is nurse to his crafty mother and mistress to the Li heir. And it is there in the enemy stronghold that she meets the captive Pao An, a hothead with a poet's tenderness, who awakens in her a passionate love, and a powerful yearning to be free of both the Manchus and the half-mad Hung--free to creat her own future.
"From the superstition-bound peasant villages to the perfumed decadence of the Forbidden City, Manchu China was a land of extremes; barbarism and elegance, poverty and lavish wealth. It's people lived in near enslavement to the emperor. Then came Hung, a charismatic new leader who promised hope to the masses--an Empire of Heaven on earth. But to Rulan, the proud daughter of a village spirit woman, Hung is a frightening stranger whose life she saved with her healing gift on a violent, demon-haunted night. Afire with the rebel cause, Rulan nonetheless hides from Hung's growing obsession with her. She serves as a spy in the house of the great Manchu general Li, where she is nurse to his crafty mother and mistress to the Li heir. And it is there in the enemy stronghold that she meets the captive Pao An, a hothead with a poet's tenderness, who awakens in her a passionate love, and a powerful yearning to be free of both the Manchus and the half-mad Hung--free to creat her own future.
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