Java Head

Salem, 1840s. The harbor hums with the business of empire: brigs unloading African ivory, ships rigging their topsails for Canton. Into this world of chloric ship masters and green-latticed gardens walks Amara, a Manchu woman of aristocratic blood, her silks the color of crushed pomegranate, her wrists weighted with jade and gold. She has come to marry into the merchant house of Troup, sealing a trade agreement with her powerful Chinese family. But Amara finds herself caught between two worlds, her heart entangled with the wrong brother, her loyalty tested by secrets as poisonous as opium smoke. Hergesheimer writes with the lush sensuality of a Persian miniature, every scene thick with the scent of sandalwood and tea, with lilac gardens and elm-shaded streets that end at docks where fortunes are made and lost. This is historical romance without apology, a novel that trades in beauty rather than sociology, where women in peacock shawls wield power invisible to men. It captures a moment when America looked east for riches and found something far more dangerous: desire.