AmongReaders.com Add a tiny library
📚 AmongReaders — track what you read, talk chapter by chapter without spoilers, and read with friends. Free.Join AmongReadersSign in

🧲 Books like this

The Dragon and the Pearl

Jeannie Lin · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Empress Orchid

Anchee Min · 346 pages

From the master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the splendid heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young Chinese concubine who becomes China's last empress. Min introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of a country girl who seizes power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enem

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesRomance
❤️

The Empress of Bright Moon

Weina Dai Randel · 499 pages

At the moment of the Emperor's death, everything changes in the palace. Mei, his former concubine, is free, and Pheasant, the heir and Mei's lover, is proclaimed as the new Emperor, heralding a new era in China. But just when Mei believes she's closer to her dream, Pheasant's chief wife, Lady Wang, powerful and unpredictable, turns against Mei and takes unthinkable measures to stop her. The power

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionRomanceSeries
❤️

The Hidden Blade

Sherry Thomas · 250 pages

In the waning days of the last dynasty, in a quiet, beautiful corner of imperial Peking, a young girl's blissful ignorance is shattered when she learns that she is the illegitimate daughter of an English adventurer and a Chinese courtesan. What future is there for such a girl? But a mysterious figure steps forward and offers to instruct her in the highest forms of martial arts--a path to a life of

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionRomanceSeries
❤️

River of Stars

Guy Gavriel Kay · 639 pages

"Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life-- in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later-- and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesPolitical Intrigue
❤️

White Tigress

Jade Lee · 354 pages

Eglishwoman Lydia Smith sailed to the Orient seeking her fiancé. She found treachery instead. In seedy Shanghai, she was drugged, sold, made a slave to a dark-eyed dragon of a man. But while her captor purchased her body, was that what he truly sought? He demanded not her virginity but her yin—the essence of her ecstasy—and there seemed no choice but to consent. What harm, Lydia wondered, was ther

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesRomance
❤️

Throne of Jade

Naomi Novik · 399 pages

When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo--an unhatched dragon's egg--Capt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain's Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle in daring combat against Bonaparte's invading forces. Now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesPolitical Intrigue
❤️

Day of the Dragon King

Mary Pope Osborne · 75 pages

The magic treehouse takes Jack and Annie back two thousand years to ancient China where they must find the original copy of an old legend before the Imperial Library is burned down by the evil Dragon King.

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesFemale Lead
❤️

The Emperor's Pearl: A Judge Dee Mystery

Robert van Gulik · 184 pages

It all begins on the night of the Poo-yang dragonboat races in 699 A.D.: a drummer in the leading boat collapses, and the body of a beautiful young woman turns up in a deserted country mansion. There, Judge Dee—tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger—steps in to investigate the murders and return order to the Tang Dynasty. In The Emperor’s Pearl, the judge discovers that these two

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
❤️

Sandalwood Death

Mo Yan · 409 pages

Sun Meiniang interacts with the three men in her life during the Boxer Rebellion, including Sun Bing, her father and a leader of the rebellion, who is destined to come to a cruel end.

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionPolitical IntrigueFemale Lead
❤️

The Apothecary Diaries, Vol. 1

Nekokurage · 176 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesPolitical Intrigue
❤️

The Debt of Tears

Cao Xueqin · 400 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
❤️

Silk and Sensibility

Mengxi Seeley · 368 pages

A charming retelling of Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility' set in Ming-dynasty China, following two sisters navigating love and duty.

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionRomanceFemale Lead
❤️

Saints

Gene Luen Yang · 170 pages

Boxers : In China in 1898 bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers roam the countryside, bullying and robbing Chinese peasants. Little Bao has had enough: harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods, he recruits an army of Boxers--commoners trained in kung fu who fight to free China from "foreign devils." Saints : "China, 1898. An unwanted and unwelcome fourth daughter, Four-Girl isn't even g

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesFemale Lead
❤️

The Good Earth

Pearl S. Buck · 316 pages

This tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall. Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
❤️

Garden of the Purple Dragon

Carole Wilkinson · 354 pages

Ping is in hiding on the mountain slopes of Tai Shan, carrying out her promise to look after the baby purple dragon, Kai. But her peaceful life comes to an end when the imperial guards catch her, and take her back to Ming Yang lodge. Does she have the strength to fulfil her destiny as the Dragonkeeper - and find sanctuary for Kai?

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesFemale Lead
❤️

The Dreamer Wakes

Cao Xueqin, Gao E · 384 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
❤️

My Splendid Concubine

Lloyd Lofthouse · 250 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionRomance
❤️

Flashman and the Dragon

George MacDonald Fraser · 320 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
🙂

Jade Dragon Mountain

Elsa Hart · 423 pages

"On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell. Li Du is an imperial librarian in exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants, all come for the spectacle of an eclips

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeries
🙂

Three Kingdoms: Classic Novel in Four Volumes

Luo Guanzhong · 1,096 pages

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionPolitical Intrigue
🙂

Empress

Shan Sa · 336 pages

Such is the voice of Shan Sa's unforgettable heroine in her latest literary masterpiece, Empress. Empress Wu, one of China's most controversial figures, was its first and only female emperor, who emerged in the seventh century during the great Tang Dynasty and ushered in a golden age. Throughout history, her name has been defamed and her story distorted by those taking vengeance on a woman who dar

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionPolitical IntrigueFemale Lead
🙂

Peony in Love

Lisa See · 304 pages

"I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret."For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle f

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionRomanceFemale Lead
🙂

Tai-Pan

James Clavell · 601 pages

"It is the early 19th century, when European traders and adventurers first began to penetrate the forbidding Chinese mainland. And it is in this exciting time and exotic place that a giant of an Englishman, Dirk Straun, sets out to turn the desolate island of Hong Kong into an impregnable fortress of British power, and to make himself supreme ruler-- Tai-Pan!"--P. [4] of cover.

Imperial ChinaHistorical FictionSeriesPolitical Intrigue

In the works

To be read SpinnerCan’t pick your next book? Spin your Want to read.Blind date with a bookPick a mood, unwrap a surprise.Add a tiny librarySnap a little free library and its books.