Phoenix Crown

San Francisco, 1905. Gemma Garland is an opera soprano trying to save a faltering career. Suling Feng is an embroideress in Chinatown, and she is set on escaping an arranged marriage. Two women with little in common, they are both pulled into the orbit of Henry Thornton.

Thornton is a charming railroad magnate who collects Chinese antiques. His prize piece is the Phoenix Crown, a relic said to trace back to the Summer Palace in Beijing.

In 1906 the earthquake and the fires that follow tear the city apart. Thornton vanishes, and the crown goes with him. Five years later it turns up again at a lavish costume ball at Versailles, and the sight of it brings Gemma and Suling back together. They set out to learn what happened and to see justice done at last.

This is a historical novel written by two authors in collaboration. It moves between the rough, fast-growing San Francisco of the early twentieth century and the opulence of the French court. Real historical figures appear among the invented characters. The story follows both women, and the mood shifts from the chaos of disaster to the glitter of high society.