Two award winning authors of historical fiction, Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, team up to tell this tale of intrepid women in the weeks preceding and the years following the earthquake and fire that destroyed San Francisco in 1906.
Booklist provides this useful summary of the storyline: "In 1906, opera singer Gemma Garland moves to San Francisco to take her place in the chorus for a performance by the great Caruso, hoping to room with her old friend Nellie Doyle. But when she arrives, Nellie is nowhere to be found, though her housemate, botanist Alice Eastwood, encourages Gemma to stay. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Suling Feng dresses as a boy to help deliver her family's laundry, doing brisk business with hand-embroidery on the side. She is desperate to escape an arranged marriage, and she's also trying to forget her white lover, Reggie, who disappeared without a trace. One of Suling's hustles is serving champagne at the parties of industrialist Henry Thornton, who becomes taken with Gemma and offers to become her patron. But it's mere days before the devastating San Francisco earthquake and it will draw the women together in surprising ways. " They conclude their review with these praises: "Lushly detailed, richly imagined, and utterly satisfying, The Phoenix Crown will entrance readers."
Publishers Weekly agrees in their praise, "Readers of historicals with strong female leads will savor this."
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