China Series

by Christopher Nicole 3 books in this series

The China Series follows connected women through the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the violent decades that follow. Constance Baird enters missionary and court society before the Boxer crisis; Adela Wynne returns as a Manchu heiress during the revolution of 1911; and Joan Carter arrives in 1926 to research the former imperial world only to become trapped in a divided republic.

Romance and family continuity link the novels, but each heroine also encounters a different political order competing to define China: court conservatives, revolutionaries, warlords and Japanese occupiers. The sequence therefore moves from imperial Peking through republican fragmentation towards the conflict that becomes the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Reading order

Books in this series (3 books)

1. The Crimson Pagoda

Christopher Nicole

First published 1983

4.0(477)

The newly married and youthful Mrs Constance Baird feels like her life is only just beginning as she sets sail to join her husband, a famous American missionary, in Peking, China. She is desperately excited to explore not only the foreign land with all its alien…

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2. The Scarlet Princess

Christopher Nicole

First published 1984

4.1(265)

The year is 1911, and orphaned teenager Adela Wynne, after growing up in America, is sailing back towards her beloved homeland of China, together with her formidable aunt Constance. But three thousand years of imperial rule are rapidly coming to an end. Little does she yet…

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3. Red Dawn

Christopher Nicole

First published 1985

4.2(280)

China, 1926. Widowed writer Joan Carter arrives to research the life of the late Empress Dowager Cixi and becomes involved with Geoffrey Marne, a man she initially distrusts. Their relationship develops while warlords, foreign interests and competing political factions struggle for control of the republic. Violence…

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