My Historical Epic

Since finishing the first draft of my second novel last September, I spent the rest of 2015 and the first two months of 2016 in rewriting and polishing it, which work process is by now more or less complete. This second novel is a historical epic set in 17th century China and is about the legendary life story of Qing Dynasty's first Empress Dowager - Xiaozhuang - who was a Mongolian Princess of the Borjigit clan (the clan of Genghis Khan's) by birth and the grandmother of the great Kangxi Emperor. While doing research for the novel, I had become totally bewitched by this free-spirited Mongolian woman, without whose wits and efforts the Qing Empire wouldn't have been able to survive its fledgling years and history would've been rewritten. Needless to say, her contributions were vastly underrated as Chinese historians have the entrenched tradition of ignoring or sidelining the weaker sex's positive influence on politics, on society and most importantly, on humanity.


I feel honored and thrilled by the latest 5-star review of Fated and Fateless by my Goodreads friend Ace! Her heartfelt words have made the hard work that I put into writing all the more worthwhile. Any aspiring writer would know the scourging process of trying to build up a readership. For an amateurish marketer like me, good reviews mean that much more and I am grateful for them. It is also heartening to see that Goodreads as a readers' social media platform has been helpful and instrumental in the build-up of a following for me as an author.

Ace's 5-Star Review of Fated and Fateless