On the edge of the Siberian grasslands that border imperial China, in the last years of the great Tang dynasty, the beautiful daughter of a warrior and his concubine is born into a dying world.

Lily's China is a place of pavilions and temples, lakes and snow-capped mountains, sages, scholars and poets. But it is also founded on ancient cruelty and injustice and subject to a wanton and capricious ruler. The fortunes of Lily, given up by her mother and orphaned before she is five years old, are bound tight to those of this vast, decaying empire.

As Lily struggles for her freedom from the antique rituals and intricate, brittle hierarchies of imperial society, she uses her gift for invention to transform herself, from wilful daughter to adored concubine, from notorious courtesan to great poetess. But as the barbarian hordes gather for invasion, the fate that has always awaited Lily draws near...

By the acclaimed author of The Drink and Dream Teahouse, Passing Under Heaven is both beautifully written and compulsively readable: a thousand-year-old story of love and loss brought vividly to life.