The Flower Boat Girl - by Larry Feign (Paperback)

About the Book

Based on the true story of the 19th century Chinese prostitute who became the most powerful pirate in history. The Flower Boat Girl is the story of a courageous young woman who, against all odds, shaped history on her own terms.

Book Synopsis

Her father traded away her youth.

Sea bandits stole her freedom.

She has one way to get them back:

Become the most powerful pirate in the world.

South China coast, 1801. Sold as a child to a floating brothel, 26-year-old Yang has finally bought her freedom, only to be kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader.

Dragged through stormy seas and lawless bandit havens, Yang must stay scrappy to survive. She embeds herself in the dark business of piracy, carving out her role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders and Cheung Po Tsai, her husband's flamboyant male concubine.

As she is caught between bitter rivals fighting for mastery over the pirates-and for her heart-Yang faces a choice between two things she never dreamed might be hers: power or love.

Based on a true story that has never been fully told until now, The Flower Boat Girl is the tale of a woman who, against all odds, shaped history on her own terms.

Review Quotes

"A breathtaking saga of a real life heroine, so richly alive that the pages seem to breathe."

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author (Pictures of You, Cruel Beautiful World)

"A vivid and often compelling adventure with a sweeping, cinematic feel."

Kirkus

"A simply riveting read from first page to last."

Midwest Book Review

"Fast-paced plotting, evocative prose and attention to detail ... Will satisfy lovers of thoughtful historical fiction."

BookLife from Publisher's Weekly

"One cannot mention historical fiction set in the early 19th-century South China Sea without bringing to mind James Clavell's Tai-Pan. Feign's work bears comparison both in its historical and geographical sweep, as well as in its readability and attention to regional historical detail."

Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books

"The Flower Boat Girl is historical fiction at its best. Once picked up, this novel will be hard to put down."

Dian Murray, historian and author of Pirates of the South China Coast

"Convincingly renders Cheng's stranger-than-fiction trajectory to pirate royalty, punctuated by ripe Cantonese profanity."

South China Morning Post

"I can't think of a novel I've enjoyed reading more than I enjoyed this one."

Mary Helen Stefaniak, award-winning author (The Turk and My Mother; The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia)