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Min, AncheeMorton, Kateaccidental, but deputy police chief TomHollis is convinced the truth lies in theintricate histories and family secrets ofAmagansett’s inhabitants.Empress OrchidTo rescue her family from poverty andavoid marrying her slope-shoulderedcousin, seventeen-year-old Orchidcompetes to be one of the Emperor’swives. When she is chosen as a lowerrankingconcubine she enters theerotically charged and ritualisedForbidden City. But beneath itsimmaculate facade lie whispers ofmurders and ghosts, and the thousandsof concubines will stoop to any lengths tobear the Emperor’s son.The House at RivertonSummer 1924: On the eve of a glitteringSociety party, by the lake of an Englishcountry house, a young poet takes hislife. The only witnesses, sisters Hannahand Emmeline Hartford, will neverspeak to each other again. Winter 1999:Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaidof Riverton Manor, is visited by a youngdirector making a film about the poet’ssuicide. A shocking secret threatens toemerge; something history has forgottenbut Grace never could.59