A 5-star Review that Makes My Heart Sing!

This latest 5-star review of The Green Phoenix: A Novel of the Woman Who Re-Made Asia, Empress Xiaozhuang put a smile on my face! It feels good when your work strikes a chord with the reader.

What Alice Poon has done is to take the broad historical sweep of these events and bring them down to the individual human scale, and let us view these dramatic and historically significant happenings through the eyes of one woman, over the course of her whole life.

The author doesn't shy away from the harsh historical reality of the events; we see palace intrigue in the fledgling Qing court, personal jealousies and ambition, betrayal and loyalty. We see the military and political machinations, cruel death sentences, assassination attempts, powerful generals changing sides during wartime, and vicious reprisals on civilian populations. And through it all, we're shown the ability of one individual—one woman—to influence all these events.

In a very positive form of multiculturalism, Bumbutai uses her keen judgment to emphasize the best elements of Chinese, Mongol, and even some Western ideas, values and outlooks.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...