Book
Empress Orchid
by Anchee Min
Book 1 in the Empress Orchid series.
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In 1850s China, seventeen-year-old Orchid Yehonara enters the imperial selection process to rescue her impoverished family and is chosen as a low-ranking concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor. Life in the Forbidden City is governed by ritual, rivalry and access to the ruler, and Orchid must learn how to secure her position without losing herself inside a court that treats women as instruments of succession.
The birth of the emperor’s only surviving son makes Orchid a central figure in the dynasty as the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War expose the weakness of Qing government. After the court flees Beijing and Xianfeng dies, she joins Empress Nuharoo and Prince Kung in confronting the regents who would exclude the imperial mothers from power.
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