Impératrice is the daring and sumptuous fictional autobiography of one of China’s most fascinating and controversial historical figures: Lumière, the Red Empress. For centuries her incredible true story was maligned and distorted by those outraged that a woman dared climb to such heights: this book restores the woman and the legend. Impératrice opens at the height of the Tang Dynasty, 7th century A.D., when Lumière is a little girl with a passion for riding horses. After her father’s death forces her once noble family into a life of poverty, she is saved by an invitation to enter the Forbidden City and become one of the emperor’s 10,000 concubines. Once inside this otherworldly realm, she distinguishes herself not through her beauty, but rather through her athleticism, fierce courage, and cunning intellect. The heir to the throne, Petit Faisan, is so stricken with her that after he becomes Emperor he makes her Impératrice, or his first lady, and most powerful woman in China. Lumière soon expands her authority, essentially ruling the magnificent dynasty by herself until, after Petit Faisan’s death (and a nasty power struggle), she becomes the first female ruler of China and restores her family’s name to its former glory. Her lofty goal is to usher the dynasty into a golden age by quelling insurrections, easing famine, patronizing the arts, and uniting the three strands of religion fighting for prominence: “We would construct the largest dynasty of all time, we would give birth to the most beautiful civilization.” Lumière’s story is both a lyrical memoir and a fascinating record of the Forbidden City and its Machiavellian political intrigues, family in-fighting, incestuous sexual adventures, beheadings, banishments, poisonings, and magisterial wealth.

Impératrice has sold over 100,000 copies in France and rights have been sold in twelve countries.