A sweeping novel set in war-torn 1928 China, with a star-crossed love story at its center.

In a city full of thieves and Communists, danger and death, spirited young Lydia Ivanova has lived a hard life. Always looking over her shoulder, the sixteen-year-old must steal to feed herself and her mother, Valentina, who numbered among the Russian elite until Bolsheviks murdered most of them, including her husband. As exiles, Lydia and Valentina have learned to survive in a foreign land.

Often, Lydia steals away to meet with the handsome young freedom fighter Chang An Lo. But they face danger: Chiang Kai Shek's troops are headed toward Junchow to kill Reds like Chang, who has in his possession the jewels of a tsarina, meant as a gift for the despot's wife. The young pair's all-consuming love can only bring shame and peril upon them, from both sides. Those in power will do anything to quell it. But Lydia and Chang are powerless to end it.

‘The Russian Concubine is a great story of love，loss and conflicting loyalties in a fascinatingly precarious moment of history’

Diana Gabaldon，author of the Outlander series

Junchow，China，1928.Exiled from her home during the Bolshevik Revolution，her father presumed dead，Lydia Ivanova is now living with her mother，Valentina，in China

Survival iS hard.Valentina has descended into a 1ife of secrecy，depression and alcoholism，and Lydia is forcedto steal to pay their rent and find them food.One day at themarket she is caught red—handed with a gentleman's watcl in her pocket.Hauled into a side street by a policeman and facing certain death，Lydia is saved by Chang An Lo，a local boy on the run from the authorities for his Communist sympathies.

This chance meeting will change both their lives for ever.