Skyland/South Buncombe Book Club: The Phoenix Crown, by Kate Quinn & Janie Chang

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Program Type:

Book Club, Drop In, Literary

Age Group:

Adult

Program Description

Event Details

Join us for a book discussion sponsored by the Friends of the Skyland/South Buncombe Library! 

This month we will be reading The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang.  The book is available in both physical and digital editions through Buncombe County Public Libraries, and we will also have a few extra copies to borrow at the South Buncombe branch that you can stop by and sign out. 

From the publisher:

From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles.

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.