Fueled by betrayals, both women refuse to submit to fate and societal expectations, persisting in their quests to recover what was taken from them: respect a secure future and, most poignantly, love from their parents, lovers, and children. Shocked by her lover's adherence to Chinese traditions, she is unable to change him, despite her unending American ingenuity. Back in 1897 San Francisco, Violet's mother, Lucia, chooses a disastrous course as a sixteen-year-old, when her infatuation with a Chinese painter compels her to leave her home for Shanghai. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, she grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West, until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is. Violet is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. Violet Minturn, a half-Chinese/half-American courtesan who has honed her ability to become any man's fantasy since her start as a "Virgin Courtesan" at the age of twelve, struggles to find her place in the world, while her mother, Lucia, tries to make sense of the choices she has made and the men who have shaped her.
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