The Last Concubine

Rating

Japan, 1865, the women s palace in the great city of Edo. Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, is chosen to be his concubine. But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place and there is not even a word for love . Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her own origins a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her ....

Promotional Information

Epic history and romance combine in a passionate, exotic novel featuring the mysterious mistress of the last shogun emperor.

About the Author

Lesley Downer's mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese, so she grew up in a house full of books on Asia. But it was Japan, not China, that proved the more alluring.She lived there for some fifteen years. It has been an ongoing love affair. She has written many books about the country and its culture, including Geisha- The Secret History of a Vanishing World, and Madame Sadayakko- The Geisha who Seduced the West, and has presented television programmes on Japan for Channel 4 and the BBC.The Last Concubine is her first novel.