Product Description

A group of foreigners in the northeastern town of Shishan finds the status quo upset when Helen Frances, a young woman with a middle class upbringing but a fatal flaw, arrives and falls in love with the Hon Henry Manners.

The most astonishing range of characters awaits you in this novel; the wicked brothel-keeper Madam Liu and her sadistic son Ren Ren; the pragmatic missionary Dr Airton, the American zealot Septimus Harding, the equivocal Mandarin. Not to mention the wonderfully complicated anti-hero Henry Manners, the prostitutes Fan Yimei and Shen Ping, the Mongolian shaman. And the ingénue, Helen Frances herself, whose innocence covers an unorthodox curiosity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #645783 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-11
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Adam Williams knows China well and The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure is notable as much for his vivid sense of the land and its people as for being a thumping good melodramatic yarn.

Old-style historical novels tend to see things in black and white--Williams is as fascinated with the cultural misunderstandings and downright oppressions through which Europeans made themselves hated in China as he is with the martyrdoms and heroisms involved in the European experience of the Boxer rising. He has a passionate sense of the complexities--a mystical peasant rebellion found itself co-opted by criminal elements and by an upper class which saw the rebels as shock troops who could be used against Europeans and then disowned.

His sympathies are as much with the ruthlessly pragmatic Mandarin, who believes that he can control the situation by a few regrettable sacrifices, as with the saintly medical missionary Airton, who believes himself incapable of compromise with evil. In spite of its hairsbreadth escapes, sudden reversals and fights on moving trains, Williams' novel is adult in the best sense--the damaged, intense affair between British agent Manners and Helen, the girl he seduces and comes to love, has real passion. --Roz Kaveney

The Times, August 3, 2003
`Full of love and loss and guts and gore and derring-do, this is as good as an adventure story gets'

Choice
'Essential summer read . . . well-written, colourful historical novel of epic proportions with vivid, engaging and diverse characters.'

Customer Reviews

good but could have been better
an exciting and fascinating, if very sad and harrowing read.
However ... Mr Williams did break every single 'eye' rule in the writing book and it is a mystery to me why his editor did not pick up on this. I spotted it from the start.
As in, 'her eyes went round the room' 'his eyes went over her' - I could go on, there are pages and pages of this in the beginning, and then it seemed as if Mr Williams settled down and got into his writing. Having broken through the 'barrier' of history and faulty writing, the book gained momentum and became what journalists refer to as 'unputdownable' - so it is recommended for that reason, but do watch out for the very bad and lazy writing in the beginning. Watch for those travelling eyes, which, incidentally, never do leave our heads.

Wonderful!!!
The first few hundred pages of this book are used to set up the scene, time, characters, etc. so it does take a little time to get into the real story but once it gets going, you just can't stop reading it! It took me about a week to get through the first half then I read the second half in one go! This is the first book of this style I have really read - political, war/rebellion, adventure - as it never really appealed to me in the past. But this book, changed my view, the writing style was wonderful, so easy to follow. I just loved the characters and the idea of these stereotypical English folk being involved in rebellions, affairs, escapes on steam trains! Brilliant! I give it 4 stars, not 5, because it took a little perseverance to get to the heart of the story, but overall a brilliant book!

surprising
this was the first war/policical book i've read and i wasnt sure i would really follow it, but adam williams wrote it in such a way that it was easy to follow and i understood the different sides and what was going on. i thought the romantic storyline alongside the war was brill, he defintly got the mix right so there wasnt one overpowering the other, so you never got bored with too much of one.

the love story follows helen francis, a girl that wants to experience evrything in life, which ends up with her cheating on her husband to be, and getting a drug addiction,and so much more as shes caught up in the war.

i loved the characters, even though they all had their own personal flaws, i got so absorbed into the book i couldnt put it down, and it was always on my mind. i loved this book, and was dissapointed when it came to an end.

i couldnt recommend the book enough, its on of those must reads.