The Blue Dress Girl

Home > Other > The Blue Dress Girl > Page 42
The Blue Dress Girl Page 42

by E. V. Thompson


  A British-led Chinese force contributed to the ultimate defeat of the Taipings. Commanding this irregular force was Major Charles Gordon, the Engineer officer who had supervised the burning of the Summer palace at Peking. He would one day take his own place in history as the martyred ‘Gordon of Khartoum’.

  More than a century later a savage war was waged against ‘imperialism’ in the land known as Viet Nam. One casualty of twentieth-century warfare was a once-magnificent palace that still wore a mantle of mystery and forgotten romance. Legend tells that this was once the home of a mysterious Fan Qui War Lord and his Hakka wife, who ruled the mountain kingdom for very many years.

  The modern regime scorns such stories, yet once a year the arrival of spring is celebrated beside the ruined palace. On this day, following tradition, men and boys wear a red sash over one shoulder, and the women and girls don blue dresses.

  By the Same Author

  THE MUSIC MAKERS

  CRY ONCE ALONE

  BECKY

  CASSIE

  WYCHWOOD

  TOLPUDDLE WOMAN

  LEWIN’S MEAD

  MOONTIDE

  CAST NO SHADOWS

  SOMEWHERE A BIRD IS SINGING

  WINDS OF FORTUNE

  SEEK A NEW DAWN

  THE LOST YEARS

  PATHS OF DESTINY

  TOMORROW IS FOR EVER

  THE VAGRANT KING

  THOUGH THE HEAVENS MAY FALL

  NO LESS THAN THE JOURNEY

  CHURCHYARD AND HAWKE

  THE DREAM TRADERS

  BEYOND THE STORM

  GOD’S HIGHLANDER

  The Retallick Saga

  BEN RETALLICK

  CHASE THE WIND

  HARVEST OF THE SUN

  SINGING SPEARS

  THE STRICKEN LAND

  LOTTIE TRAGO

  RUDDLEMOOR

  FIRES OF EVENING

  BROTHERS IN WAR

  The Jagos of Cornwall

  THE RESTLESS SEA

  POLRUDDEN

  MISTRESS OF POLRUDDEN

  As James Munro

  HOMELAND

  Copyright

  © E.V. Thompson 2012

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  This edition 2012

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0803 6 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0804 3 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0805 0 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7090 9846 1 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of E.V. Thompson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

 

 

 


‹ Prev