The Flower Boat Girl: A novel based on a true story

by Larry Feign

Overview

Her father traded away her youth.

Sea bandits stole her freedom.

She has one way to get them back:

Become the most powerful pirate in the world.

South China coast, 1801. Sold as a child to a floating brothel, 26-year-old Yang has finally bought her freedom, only to be kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader.

Dragged through stormy seas and lawless bandit havens, Yang must stay scrappy to survive. She embeds herself in the dark business of piracy, carving out her role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders and Cheung Po Tsai, her husband's flamboyant male concubine.

As she is caught between bitter rivals fighting for mastery over the pirates-and for her heart-Yang faces a choice between two things she never dreamed might be hers: power or love.

Based on a true story that has never been fully told until now, The Flower Boat Girl is the tale of a woman who, against all odds, shaped history on her own terms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789627866558
Publisher:	Top Floor Books
Publication date:	06/28/2021
Pages:	438
Sales rank:	304,401
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

Larry Feign is an award-winning writer and artist who has lived walking distance from notorious pirate haunts in a South China Sea island village since 1991. He is the author of several books about Hong Kong, as well as a children's book series under a pen name. He is married with two grown children.

Editorial Reviews

06/28/2021

Feign, the cartoonist and writer, immerses readers in this historical fiction based on the life of a nineteenth-century sex worker who is kidnapped by pirates—and later marries one of their number. In early 19th century China, Shek Yang is sold into prostitution by her father and eventually kidnapped by pirate captain Cheng Yat, the “a sea scum bandit” who forces her into marriage and gives her the name Cheng Yat Sou— “Cheng Yat’s honored wife.” She endures rape by her husband, becomes pregnant despite seeking preventive measures, and yearns for freedom. Cheng Yat Sou nevertheless uses her intelligence and business acumen to achieve tremendous success as his business partner in a profitable pirate confederation.

The fast-paced plotting, focused on the tenacity of a woman who survives horrific circumstances, and Feign’s evocative prose and attention to detail quickly makes the narrative compelling: “Maybe only prison was more colorless, boring, and worm-ridden than spending day after day on a moving ship, but at least prison offered shelter from late summer sun and squall,” the protagonist memorably declares. Feign endows his characters with persuasive voices, illuminating the driving forces behind their cutthroat choices and imbuing their histories with meaning and depth. Convincing historic detail regarding maritime life, the 19th century economy, and the story’s far-flung locations brings life to a world of seafaring danger and struggles for dominance. The abuse elements of the narrative are handled with sensitivity.

While some historical novels seem so rooted in the past that their relevance is not clear to present day readers, Feign shrewdly ties his narrative of 19th century China to contemporary life by focusing on how relationships are shaped by circumstance and experiences. References to poetry and thought-provoking insights (“You can’t sail backward, so why worry about the waves behind you?”) add lyricism as this story of a woman’s resilience surges toward a conclusion that will satisfy lovers of thoughtful historical fiction.

Takeaway: A compelling novel of the resilience of a 19th-century woman forced into marriage to a pirate.

Great for fans of: Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women, Amy Stanley’s Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and her World.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

"A breathtaking saga of a real life heroine, so richly alive that the pages seem to breathe."

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author (Pictures of You, Cruel Beautiful World)

"A vivid and often compelling adventure with a sweeping, cinematic feel."

Kirkus

"A simply riveting read from first page to last."

Midwest Book Review

"Fast-paced plotting, evocative prose and attention to detail ... Will satisfy lovers of thoughtful historical fiction."

BookLife from Publisher's Weekly

"One cannot mention historical fiction set in the early 19th-century South China Sea without bringing to mind James Clavell's Tai-Pan. Feign's work bears comparison both in its historical and geographical sweep, as well as in its readability and attention to regional historical detail."

Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books

"The Flower Boat Girl is historical fiction at its best. Once picked up, this novel will be hard to put down."

Dian Murray, historian and author of Pirates of the South China Coast

"Convincingly renders Cheng's stranger-than-fiction trajectory to pirate royalty, punctuated by ripe Cantonese profanity."

South China Morning Post

"I can't think of a novel I've enjoyed reading more than I enjoyed this one."

Mary Helen Stefaniak, award-winning author (The Turk and My Mother; The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia)

From the Publisher