Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards (Gold Medal, Romance) Set in China in the late 1800’s, The Secret Language of Women tells the story of star-crossed lovers, Zhou Bin Lian, a Eurasian healer, and Giacomo Scimenti, an Italian sailor, driven apart by the Boxer Rebellion. When Lian is seventeen years old, she accompanies her Swiss father, Dr. Gianluca Brasolin, fluent in Italian, to tend the Italian ambassador, at the Summer Palace of Empress Dowager, where she meets and falls in love with Giacomo. Through voyage and adventure, their love intensifies, but soon is severed by Lian’s dutiful promise as the wife to another. Forbidden from pursuing her chosen profession as a healer, and despised because she does not have bound feet, she is forced to work in a cloisonné factory while her in-laws raise her daughter, Ya Chen. It is in Nushu, the women’s secret writing, that she chronicles her life and her hopes for the future. Rebelling against the life forced upon her, she empowers herself to act out against the injustice and becomes the master of her own destiny. But her quest for freedom comes at a costly price: The life of someone close to her, lost in a raging typhoon, a grueling journey to the Yun-kang Caves, and a desperate search for beauty and love in the midst of brutality.
Trade Review“Here is a gripping tale of swift passion and interrupted courtship set against the background of the Boxer Rebellion, an epic tale of love and romance that is at once lyrical, unflinching, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting. If you’re a fan of novels with scope and ambition, novels you get lost in and can’t put down, novels whose characters will haunt your dreams, then you’ll want to read The Secret Language of Women.” —John Dufresne, No Regrets, Coyote
"Rich with history, The Secret Language of Women offers a beautiful and harrowing landscape of love found, lost, and hunted for – at all costs and with dire consequences. Like the bound feet, so idealized in her novel, Romano’s characters are broken and reformed into both the beautiful and the grotesque. Haunting." —Barbara Wood, New York Times bestselling author
"A stunning look at China at the turn of the twentieth century, this is a love story that crosses boundaries both cultural and geographic. In Nina Romano’s The Secret Language of Women, two lovers torn apart by war and culture struggle to reunite against all odds. Despite their determination, fate continues to thwart their efforts, driving home how ephemeral and bittersweet finding true love can be [...] From lush summer palaces to modest countryside farms, The Secret Language of Women demonstrates how love can cross cultural and geographical borders. It proves how love at first sight need not be an impossibility and can form a foundation to carry its recipients through times both good and ill." - Foreword Reviews
"This is a beautiful story of hope and love stronger than any adversity. Very special historical fiction that is highly recommended!" - Historical Novel Society
