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Submission Synopsis
Empress of Gold Mountain
by Lissa Lee
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Length:
90,000 Words
Genre:
Historical Romance
Ethnic
Other Books in Series:
Concubine of Gold Mountain (in progress)
Sentence:
An unabashedly lusty and lifelong love story between a stubborn Chinese
woman and a quick-tempered cowboy, following their turbulent journey from
El Paso to San Francisco to Los Angeles in the 1800s.
Blurb/Logline:
Madam Ah Toy, San Francisco’s first Chinese “lady of joy,” accumulated
unprecedented wealth given her circumstances. What if she had borne
a daughter – would she have subjected the child to her same fate, with its
attendant power as well as perils, or would she have challenged her daughter’s
destiny at a time when the options were either servant or prostitute?
Lin, raised by a Reverend and his wife, sets out to find her birth mother
against their wishes. Along her journey, she is aided by an earnest
cowpoke, an emotionally cruel benefactor, a clever cook, and the scheming
Madam Ah Toy. In being manipulated and learning to manipulate, she finds
a way out of servitude and into great wealth, but learns what her ambition
and stubbornness wreak. Is Lin the Madam’s daughter?
Synopsis:
Part I: Escape from the Sinner’s Bench
There aren’t many options for the child of
a prostitute in 1850s San Francisco. Lin is given to the Reverend and
Mrs. Todd, and they settle in El Paso to proselytize to those who have stepped
up to the sinner’s bench. The rigid Mrs. Todd tries her best to instill
in Lin the obedient demeanor befitting someone whose destiny is to be a servant;
after all, what else is there for a Chinese female in America at the time?
The Reverend Todd is much freer in his affection for the child. By seventeen,
Lin is an uncommon beauty, and the Reverend’s weakness is his downfall.
His wife, who intuits more than she lets on, arranges to send Lin to a convent;
but Lin wants to go back to San Francisco to find her mother. She forms
a friendship with an earnest but quick-tempered hand, Tom Nichols, and they
plan their escape. The subsequent journey includes murder, a rain-swept
flight, growing desire, and unspoken love, as they make their way on horseback
through New Mexico and Colorado along the Goodnight-Loving Trail, then take
the Union Pacific train west to California. Their theme song on this journey
becomes The Yellow Rose of Texas, which Tom explains is about a resourceful
indentured woman – much like Lin.
Part II: Looking in the Golden Gate
Gossipy servant Hop Fong brings news of Lin’s
search for her mother to Madam Ah Toy, proprietress of the fanciest brothel
in San Francisco’s Chinatown. After orchestrating a heart wrenching
betrayal by the unwitting Tom, she takes Lin under her wing. Ah Toy
has a strategy in mind – one that seems transparent at first but sets Lin
on a life-altering course, and leaves the reader with a much different impression
of the Madam at the end. Word spreads of a great beauty offered for
the unheard-of price of five hundred dollars per visit, which intrigues Ah
Toy’s richest customer, Jonathan Matthews. He hires Lin as his exclusive
consort. Jonathan’s great pleasure in possessing Lin is matched only
by his emotional cruelty. When she tells him she’s pregnant, he terminates
their business arrangement. He leaves to pursue new ventures in El Pueblo
de Los Angeles, where he gets caught up in the Chinese massacre of 1871.
In a pang of conscience, he brings Lin and her daughter, Mei Ling, to live
in his Bunker Hill mansion.
Part III: Ascending the City of Angels
Lin is swept into high society life as the
wife of the enigmatic Jonathan Matthews. While accompanying her husband on
a business trip, they come upon a standoff between a group of Chinese and
white men, who are incensed because the Celestials work harder for less pay
and are stealing their jobs. In the ensuing riot, Jonathan is killed.
Lin can’t inherit his estate because they weren’t legally married; California’s
anti-miscegenation laws are still in effect. Destitute and with a child
to support, Lin opens an “Oriental Massage” business catering to the same
wealthy men she and Jonathan once socialized with. She prospers; she
likes making money and she’s good at it. But with the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882 looming and Mei Ling growing up, Lin needs to secure her future
through more legitimate means. From 1889–1906, the twists and turns
include the opening of the Gold Mountain Restaurant, blackmail by a business
rival and inventive countermeasures, and, finally, the realization that in
her ambition, Lin gave up the love of her life. She goes to find Tom.
But it may be too late.
Bio:
After a dozen years writing grant proposals, marketing brochures, newsletters,
press releases, business speeches, and other forms of corporate fiction, Lissa
Lee wrote her first novel, EMPRESS OF GOLD MOUNTAIN. In this historical
saga, she explores experiences from her own life growing up in a small Midwestern
town and then leaving home – emotions and themes such as longing, ambition,
naiveté, lust, betrayal, and discovery – and the ambiguity of living between
two cultures. Lissa resides in Los Angeles, California, with her two
dogs, two cats, and too many fish to count. She is now working on a
sequel/prequel.
Additional:
A former vocation as a writer, researcher, and consultant for cultural
and historical organizations – among them, KCET Public Television, East West
Players Theatre, Los Angeles Conservancy, and the Historical Society of Southern
California – and a love of rain, horses, and conflicted men.
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