The Poet Empress is a debut by Shen Tao, set in 650AD China in the kingdom of Tensha. The current emperor is dying and two of his sons are vying for the throne. One of them, Terren, needs a bride and concubines, so a nationwide search is begun. During the approval process he randomly chooses the daughter of a rice farmer, a nobody from a poor famine-stricken village. Even more ... Read More...
A Song to Drown Rivers
There is a Chinese folk tale about four sisters so beautiful they could be denied nothing. One of those sisters is Xishi and in Ann Liang’s novel, A Song to Drown Rivers, she is called upon to use her beauty for vengeance and destruction. For Xishi, growing up in a tiny village in the Yue kingdom, her beauty is auspicious for her parents as it means she may be ... Read More...
River East, River West
In the search for fiction that takes me out of my own experiences Aube Rey Lescure’s River East, River West was just what I wanted. Alva and her mother Sloan have always been partners, the two of them against the world. A daunting task made even more so by the fact that they live in Shanghai. Sloan is white and Alva is bi-racial from a long-gone Chinese father. While her mother ... Read More...
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Lisa See’s depictions of the women of China and Southeast Asia have always been entertaining and educational reading so I was pleased to hear about her new novel, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Set in 15th century China it’s the story of one of China’s first female doctors. Yunxian Tan is a little girl when, her mother dies at the age of 28. She is sent to live with her ... Read More...
Peach Blossom Spring
I’ve done my fair share of fictional reading about World War II. What I’ve never heard much about is Chinese history at the time. Peach Blossom Spring goes some way towards rectifying that as it spans one family’s journey from mainland China in the mid-20th century all the way up to America in 2015. In that time, much changes including the shape and meaning of family and ... Read More...
Rich People Problems
If you’re stopping by for the first time, here’s some critical information before I get into my review of Rich People Problems: I’m a die-hard Kevin Kwan fan. I tore through his debut novel, Crazy Rich Asians like it was a Chanel sample sale and I had an AmEx Centurion card. It was love from first page. Book two in the series, China Rich Girlfriend, continued the ... Read More...
