I absolutely adore Anchee Min as an author, she is one of my favorite authors of all time. This book has been on the backburner for so long with little ambition to read it. I have had it for 6 months now and actually started it back in December and am just picking it up now because I promised myself that i would read it in full before ordering the Last Empress by Anchee that came out this past week. I am enjoying the book and am picking up on a different writing technique on this one to.