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Lisan Liu was an orphan with no memory of her past when she was taken in by the powerful Master Liu. Now 19 and seeking independence, she takes a job as a secretary to American heiress Caroline Stanton, whose husband, Thomas, is in Shanghai to invest in railroads. Caroline and Thomas live in crumbling Lennox Manor with Thomas' uncle, whose troubled past leads many of the Chinese servants to believe that the house is haunted. Indeed, Lisan, often troubled by nightmares, starts to see a lady in red roaming the grounds at night. She finds comfort in Yao, a gardener at Lennox Manor who was also raised by Master Liu. Meanwhile, Caroline is disturbed by the arrival of an unwelcome American guest who seems to hold clues to her life in the U.S. Chang's latest (following The Phoenix Crown, 2023, with Kate Quinn) is a deliciously gothic tale of haunting secrets and unexpectedly unreliable narrators set in 1911 Shanghai, with all its international glamor and buzzings of revolution. Recommend to readers who like their historical fiction dark and suspenseful.