Sometimes the only way to uncover a destiny is to watch cherished illusions shatter like a thousand pieces of glass.
Tanya Zhukova, a White Russian artist, struggles to make a living in glamorous 1930’s Shanghai. The city’s veneer of sophistication merely glosses over a perilous underbelly, one where a woman can easily be drawn into vices that are beyond redemption just to survive.
Spymaster Richard Hellyer takes Tanya to his bed, entertaining himself with her charms when it suits him. He then disappears into a world of intrigue, leaving few clues behind for his abandoned lover to follow.
Obsessed with winning Richard’s love, Tanya will stop at nothing to achieve her aim, not even if it means throwing away her hard won security and the only home she has ever known.
In a dangerous journey that leads them into Japanese occupied Manchuria, Tanya and Richard play a game of power, deceit, and sensuality, where the stakes are deadly and only history remembers the winner.
What Readers Say
I absolutely loved this book. It has such depth, the characters are complex and intimate and the storytelling is utterly masterful. It’s a complex story yet its also impossible to put down. Highly recommended
SKF
If you enjoyed The Lens of Desire, read Meridian
Mairin, a former WWI nurse married to a wealthy and dangerous man, embarks on a reckless love affair with a social outcast. During the course of their affair, she tells the following story:
A father, on a spiritual quest of his own, abandons his daughter to the negligent care of wealthy relatives. Returning to England, he tries to orchestrate a comfortable marriage for her despite her intention to become a painter. In an act of rebellion, she joins the war effort.
Deeply traumatized by her experiences as a nurse in France, and the deaths of her family in the influenza epidemic of 1919, she finds herself penniless and friendless in the libertine post-war era. Attempting to quiet her demons, she falls into frenzied sexual promiscuity until she meets an unforgiving and powerful man. However, she finds that her past will continue to haunt her until she can finally put it to rest.
What Readers Say
Beautifully written tale, rich in history, and rife with passion, power struggle, betrayal and redemption. The main character, Mairin, has a strength born of pain and circumstance that kept me engaged and captivated. As always, L.S. Temmer’s strong style of writing kept me captivated, and hungry for more.
I’m looking forward to reading this one again.