Xingyin lives a contented but isolated childhood with her mother, the Moon Goddess who is forbidden to leave her domain. But after Xingyin experiments with magic lights around her, the Celestial Empress visits accusing her mother of trying to escape from her imprisonment. Fearing her daughter will be discovered, she instructs Xingyin under the protection of Ping’er, to hide in the Southern Sea with Ping’er’s family. During the journey, they are attacked by Celestial soldiers and the pair are separated. Alone, Xingyin must forge a new life in the Celestial Kingdom in the hope that she can free her mother from the chains of her isolation.
When Sayuri is a child in a poor fishing village, she is sold into slavery to a Kyoto geisha house. As she grows, she is groomed to become a geisha and is soon visiting teahouses dressed in fine kimonos and competing with a jealous rival.
Two sisters, Pearl and May, lead exciting lives in Shanghai until their father’s once rich lifestyle is gambled away. Their father is forced to sell his daughters as wives to men in California seeking wives. Escaping from invading soldiers, they journey across to U.S.A. to begin new lives with the strangers they’ve married. This is Lisa See at her best.
Another five out of five is her Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Set in Wuxi in the 1400s, Yunxian is sent to her grandparents after her mother dies and her father leaves to study for an exam. When Grandmother Ru sees the potential in her granddaughter, she begins to share her medical knowledge with Yunxian until it is time for her marriage. Under her mother-in-law, she is forbidden to practise medicine, but Yunxian cannot bear to see other women suffer because male doctors can only question women behind a curtain, thus leading to many unsuccessful diagnoses. Set within a rich Chinese family’s compound, with customs such as seclusion of women and foot binding, this is a tale of Tan Yunxian’s life against all the richness of the times.
Najin doesn’t want to live a traditional Korean life, but her father tries to force her into a marriage with an aristocratic family. Her mother, defying the traditional obedient wife, arranges a position for her daughter in the king’s court as a companion to a young princess. With Japan’s control over the country and the dying monarchy, Najin’s life becomes oppressive. When she unexpectedly finds love, they are soon separated and she must face Japan’s attack on China and Pearl Harbour while her husband is an ocean away.
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