-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Summary | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | Read-Alikes
by Kate Quinn
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.
What are you reading this week? (6/26/025)
Our book club just finished The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn & Janie Chang. We are now reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Richardson.
-Yvonne
What are you reading this week? (6/5/2025)
I'm reading the Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie chang.
-Yvonne
What are you reading this week? (11/14/2024)
I am reading The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang. My book club will be discussing it tomorrow. Also, I finished The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart on my Kindle and am reading Th...
-Anna_Robinson
"Quinn and Chang have teamed up to write a powerful and surprising triumph of historical fiction. Lushly detailed, richly imagined, and utterly satisfying, The Phoenix Crown will entrance readers." —Booklist (starred review)
"Quinn (The Diamond Eye) and Chang (The Porcelain Moon) team up for a stirring story. Readers of historicals with strong female leads will savor this." —Publishers Weekly
This information about The Phoenix Crown was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kate Quinn is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. A native of Southern California, she attended Boston University, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in classical voice. A lifelong history buff, she has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga and two books set in the Italian Renaissance before turning to the 20th century with The Alice Network, The Huntress, The Rose Code, The Diamond Eye, and The Briar Club. The Astral Library is her first foray into magic realism. She and her husband now live in Maryland with their rescue dogs.
Janie Chang is a Globe and Mail bestselling author of historical fiction. Born in Taiwan, Chang has lived in the Philippines, Iran, Thailand, New Zealand, and Canada. Her novels often draw from family history and ancestral stories. She has a degree in computer science and is a graduate of the Writer's Studio Program at Simon Fraser University. She is the author of Three Souls, Dragon Springs Road, The Library of Legends, and The Porcelain Moon; and co-author of the USA Today bestseller The Phoenix Crown, with Kate Quinn.
If you liked The Phoenix Crown, try these:
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
