My Last Empress

In 1891, New Englander Samuel Pickens becomes consumed by the death of his childhood love, Annabelle Hawthorne. Convinced that her spirit is directing his life, he abandons the career expected by his family and travels to China as a missionary and tutor to a young Qing emperor. Inside the Forbidden City he meets Qiu Rong, the emperor’s adolescent wife, whose resemblance to Annabelle turns grief into a dangerous obsession.

The palace is a world of concubines, eunuchs, factional rivalry and declining imperial authority. As the emperor attempts reform against entrenched court interests and mounting foreign pressure, Samuel is drawn from observer into confidant, conspirator and protector. The novel combines late Victorian gothic, forbidden romance and court intrigue, using the decaying splendour of the late Qing court to examine desire, delusion and the political vulnerability of a dynasty approaching collapse.