Download or read book The Last Concubine written by Lesley Downer and published by Penguin Canada. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up deep in the mountains of rural Japan in 1861, Sachi has always felt different. Her life is turned upside down at 11 when she is taken to the women’s palace in the great city of Edo. There she is chosen to be the young shogun’s concubine. Set in one of the most tumultuous eras in Japanese history, The Last Concubine is an epic evocation of a country in revolution, and of a young woman’s quest to find out who she really is.
Download or read book The Last Concubine written by Lesley Downer and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan, 1865, the women's palace in the great city of Edo. Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, is chosen to be his concubine. But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place and there is not even a word for 'love'. Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her own origins - a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her ....
Download or read book The Concubine written by Elechi Amadi and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 1966 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a remote village in Eastern Nigeria, an area yet to be affected by European values and where society is orderly and predictable, the story concerns a woman "of great beauty and dignity" who inadvertently brings suffering and death to all her lovers. The novel portrays a society still ruled by traditional gods, offering a glimpse into the human relationships that such a society creates.
Download or read book Farewell My Concubine written by Helen Leung and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Farewell My Concubine, one of three new QUEER FILM CLASSICS this fall, is a thought-provoking consideration of Chen Kaige's acclaimed 1992 Chinese film set in the mid-20th century about two male Peking opera stars and the woman who comes between them, set against the political turmoil of a China in transition. The film's treatment of gender performance and homosexuality was a first in Chinese cinema, and the subject of much controversy there. The movie, which helped to bring contemporary Chinese films onto the world stage, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Chinese film to do so), and was nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar. This book, one of two new QFCs to focus on Asian queer cinema, places the film in its historical and cultural context while drawing on fresh insights from recent works on transgender and queer studies to provide readers with an intimate, provocative, and original look at the film.
Download or read book The Russian Concubine written by Kate Furnivall and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-06-27 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping novel set in war-torn 1928 China, with a star-crossed love story at its center. In a city full of thieves and Communists, danger and death, spirited young Lydia Ivanova has lived a hard life. Always looking over her shoulder, the sixteen-year-old must steal to feed herself and her mother, Valentina, who numbered among the Russian elite until Bolsheviks murdered most of them, including her husband. As exiles, Lydia and Valentina have learned to survive in a foreign land. Often, Lydia steals away to meet with the handsome young freedom fighter Chang An Lo. But they face danger: Chiang Kai Shek's troops are headed toward Junchow to kill Reds like Chang, who has in his possession the jewels of a tsarina, meant as a gift for the despot's wife. The young pair's all-consuming love can only bring shame and peril upon them, from both sides. Those in power will do anything to quell it. But Lydia and Chang are powerless to end it.
Download or read book Farewell to My Concubine written by Bihua Li and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Story of a male Beijing opera star, his love for another male singer, and the beautiful courtesan who comes between them, sweeps through five decades of Chinese history.
Download or read book The Shogun s Queen written by Lesley Downer and published by Corgi. This book was released on 2017-07-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan, and the year is 1853. Growing up among the samurai of the Satsuma Clan, in Japan's deep south, the fiery, beautiful and headstrong Okatsu has like all the clan's women been encouraged to be bold, taught to wield the halberd, and to ride a horse. But when she is just seventeen, four black ships appear. Bristling with cannon and manned by strangers who to the Japanese eyes are barbarians, their appearance threatens Japan's very existence. And turns Okatsu's world upside down. Chosen by her feudal lord, she has been given a very special role to play. Given a new name Princess Atsu and a new destiny, she is the only one who can save the realm. Her journey takes her to Edo Castle, a place so secret that it cannot be marked on any map. There, sequestered in the Women's Palace home to three thousand women, and where only one man may enter: the shogun she seems doomed to live out her days.
Download or read book The Concubine written by Jade Lee and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2009-02-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Requirements for being a royal consort: 1) Exemplify purity. 2) Pass all demanding tests. 3) Gracefully withstand petty backstabbing. 4) Be chaste. Very chaste. Check to all! Chen Ji Yue is on her way to empress superstardom in nineteenth-century China. She only has to vanquish 300 rivals to bring her family great honor. Oh, and she may not find the deliciously sexy Sun Bo Tao—the emperor's best friend—at all delicious. Or sexy. Damn. Ji Yue is in big trouble. Because Bo Tao is definitely very sexy…. And Ji Yue is about to discover that chastity is overrated….
Download or read book My Fair Concubine written by Jeannie Lin and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The USA Today–bestselling author of The Dragon and the Pearl “combines wit, seduction, skill, and intelligence in a tantalizing take on ‘My Fair Lady’” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Yan Ling tries hard to be servile—it’s what’s expected of a girl of her class. Being intelligent and strong-minded, she finds it a constant battle. Proud Fei Long is unimpressed by her spirit—until he realizes she’s the answer to his problems. He has to deliver the emperor a “princess.” In two months can he train a tea girl to pass as a noblewoman? Yet it’s hard to teach good etiquette when all Fei Long wants to do is break it, by taking this tea girl for his own . . . “Lin has a gift for bringing the wondrous and colorful world of ancient China to readers. The history and culture of the era are beautifully bound together with a classic romance theme. Those yearning for new worlds and age-old adventures will savor Lin’s novel.” —Romantic Times
Download or read book The King s Concubine written by Anne O'Brien and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A child born in the plague year of 1348, abandoned and raised within the oppressive walls of a convent, Alice Perrers refused to take the veil, convinced that a greater destiny awaited her. Ambitious and quick witted, she rose above her obscure beginnings to become the infamous mistress of Edward III. But always, essentially, she was alone... Early in Alice’s life, a chance meeting with royalty changes everything: Kindly Queen Philippa, deeply in love with her husband but gravely ill, chooses Alice as a lady-in-waiting. Under the queen’s watchful eye, Alice dares to speak her mind. She demands to be taken seriously. She even flirts with the dynamic, much older king. But she is torn when her vibrant spirit captures his interest...and leads her to a betrayal she never intended. In Edward’s private chambers, Alice discovers the pleasures and paradoxes of her position. She is the queen’s confidante and the king’s lover, yet she can rely only on herself. It is a divided role she was destined to play, and she vows to play it until the bitter end. Even as she is swept up in Edward’s lavish and magnificent court, amassing wealth and influence for herself, becoming an enemy of his power-hungry son John of Gaunt, and a sparring partner to resourceful diplomat William de Windsor, she anticipates the day when the political winds will turn against her. For when her detractors voice their hatred,and accusations of treason swirl around her,threatening to destroy everything she has achieved, who will stand by Alice then? Includes a readers guide
Download or read book Gods Concubine written by Sara Douglass and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-02 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second title of The Troy Game series, love and revenge are set against the very fabric of time itself as a warrior waits for his opportunity to finish what was started centuries before.
Download or read book The Last Concubine written by Catt Ford and published by Dreamspinner Press LLC. This book was released on 2012-07-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Princess Lan'xiu's brother delivers her under duress into General H i Wei's harem as a political offering, her only question is how soon her secret will be discovered. She is under no illusions: when the general discovers she is actually a he, death is his only future--though he doesn't plan to make it easy. Lan'xiu has dressed as a woman all his life, but he is no damsel in distress. He can swing a sword with the best of them. General H i Wei has everything a man could want: power, wealth, success on the battlefield, and a harem of concubines. At first, he regards Lan'xiu with suspicion, but he finds himself strangely drawn to her. When he discovers the beautiful young woman is actually a man, his first reaction is to draw his sword. Rather than waste such beauty, he decides to enjoy the spirited Lan'xiu's submission--and ignites a passion and desire deeper than anything he's felt with other wives. But court intrigue, political ambitions, and the general's doubts may be too much for their love to overcome.
Download or read book Empress Dowager Cixi written by Jung Chang and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died in 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.
Download or read book An Imperial Concubine s Tale written by G. G. Rowley and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula before she was finally allowed to return to Kyoto. In 1641, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun. Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and her war-torn world, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. While unraveling Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also reveals the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.
Download or read book The Last Empress written by Anchee Min and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Vivid and entertaining ... this is history as it plays upon the emotions. Empires crumble, hearts are broken' THE TIMES From the bestselling author of Red Azalea comes the much-anticipated sequel to Empress Orchid At the end of the nineteenth century China is rocked by foreign attacks and local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman, Tzu Hsi, also known as Empress Orchid, who must face the perilous condition of her empire and devastating personal losses. In this sequel to the bestselling Empress Orchid, Anchee Min brings to life one of the most important figures in Chinese history, a very human leader who sacrifices all she has to protect both those she loves and her doomed empire.
Download or read book The Grass King s Concubine written by Kari Sperring and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sperring's brilliant new novel is set several hundred years after her OenthrallingO ("Midwest Book Review") debut, "Living with Ghosts, " in a different part of the amazing, atmospheric, magical world she created. Original.
Download or read book The Viking s Runaway Concubine written by Caitlin Crews and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intense, passionate Viking romance will have you gripped! The Viking’s captive Bonded by more than chains…? Renowned Viking warrior Ulfric can’t stop thinking about his runaway concubine, Eithne. Their powerful connection seared his soul…and still she’d escaped, scarring his face in the process! But now he’s found her. He intends to teach her a lesson, but the white-hot passion between them has only grown hotter, wilder. Is he the one in danger of falling captive to the emotion only Eithne rouses in him…? From Harlequin Historical: Your romantic escape to the past.
