I've not read any other Rutherfurd books, but have seen them like bricks in bookshops, 800 pages of research threaded through with some made up characters. This is a big book about China, in particular the China from the Opium Wars to Boxer Rebellion, and has a broad and large cast of people - Chinese and British - who interact with but don't significantly effect history. This is what happened, Rutherfurd is saying, and the lives and story woven through show us what it was like to live with that turmoil over seventy years or so, And so it is not really about any of its characters, because the biggest character of all is China itself.

Well, actually its a bit about John Trader, a nominatively determined Dickens style character full of quirks and twists and hidden secrets, who is an opium trader but doesn't really want to be an one. John Trader is a difficult character for me, not just because of his name, but also because he feels out of time. He has been stitched together out of the childhoods of other Victorian school novels, he is the vehicle with which we get to understand class dynamics, but also suffers a grand guignol maiming of remarkable mundanity, We come back to John a lot, he lives to be ninety nine, and each time I felt he was explaining something to me that should be obvious from the text. It also meant I didn't really trust the Chinese characters that much. If I found John such a cliche, my interest in his Chinese counterparts probably just hid my lack of understanding that they were similarly one dimensional caricatures (even I thought too much time was spent on foot binding). For most of the book these storylines run parallel, the travails of Second Son's wife, the court insider and local administrator. And then about halfway the style changes. We suddenly get and first person confessional from a Eunuch called Lacquer Nail who ends up in the service of the Dowager Empress. Suddenly the book came to life - its a pity it happens about four hundred pages in..

China is eight hundred pages long and exists if you want a challenging beach read. You will certainly learn a lot, and I certainly can't fault the history. That said there are many clunky bits, not least when John Trader wonders out loud what historians of the future will make of the opium trade. Full disclosure, I almost gave up, but luckily hit the Lacquer Nail section which is gossipy and exciting. But it still feels like an awful lot of research with a story painted on top.

I enjoyed the book and read it quite quickly despite it's length. It is not as good as his earlier books though. Even though it covers a fairly short period - about 60 years, I felt it just skimmed through the period and didn't really develop the characters so I lost interest as to what happened to them. By giving large sections to each character at a time, only returning to them much further on in the book made the story disjointed. I'd already ready a book on the life of Empress Cixi but felt single-minded determination did not really come out in this book. .I've been to several of the places mentioned in the book so it was easy the imagine them over a century ago. Rutherford's research is always impeccable.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

Rating: 4.5/5, rounded up because this was a great history lesson for me.

In China, Rutherfurd covers a (roughly) 70-year period of the history of China, starting with the 1st Opium War in 1839. The story unfolds through a series of characters, some Chinese, some British or American, and I really enjoyed their different (opposing, really) points of view or perceptions about an event. I enjoyed hearing the Chinese referring to the British as "barbarians" and chuckled quite a few times about it. Towards the second half, the book relies much more on the Chinese perspective and the 'barbarians' take a step back. I enjoyed this, because I felt that the Chinese characters were more nuanced, less straightforward for me to understand, so I wanted to get to know them better.

I really enjoyed learning about history in this way. I wasn't aware of any of the events that are covered in the book, and I feel like by having the dual perspective I could understand both sides better. This was my first read from Edward Rutherfurd, but I have had New York on my TBR for a while, and I will definitely pick it up as soon as I can stomach another 800-page book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very long book but I read it quite fast as it's brilliant, gripping and entertaining.
A books that talks about a complex time in China history and makes you travel in time and space.
A great historical saga that makes you learn something about history while entertaining.
I think that Edward Rutherfurd is a talented storyteller and I love to read the stories he tells.
Excellent character development, well researched and vivid historical background.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I have read most of Rutherfurd's books and was looking forward to this. It did not disappoint! My only knowledge of the Opium Wars has been from brief sessions during my History O'level years covering that and 'gunboat diplomacy'. The book sticks to Rutherfurd's usual style of following 3 or 4 main characters and their families through a whole chunk of history. Particularly like the mixing of the fictional characters with real ones such as 'Gordon' and 'Churchill' (not that one obviously). A little annoyance but may just be me, so many American spellings throughout. I know the author has spent time in the US but have never noticed it in his other books. Is this a feature of e-books? Change the spell-check dictionary! Thanks to Netgalley.

Beginning in 1839, China tells the stories of many seemingly unconnected characters, both Chinese and British, as they live, work and fight across the country. There are many separate strands - the British opium traders trying to sell their drugs in opposition to the Emperor’s wishes; the young Chinese scholar working his way up in society; the pirates who will fight or trade with all parties, no matter their nationality; and the down on his luck craftsman, who becomes a eunuch to serve in the Emperor’s palace - but they all link together at different points of the book.

China is a long book (775 pages) but somehow Edward Rutherfurd manages to keep the interest and entertainment flowing throughout. It’s not a frantic all-action story, but a gentle tale of life in 19th century China as it battles against the barbarian hordes who want them to change. There are times when it’s quite an uncomfortable read: the actions of the British in blasting them into submission when the opium trade is cut, for example, makes you realise how ruthless the British were. At the same time, the seemingly antiquated ways of the Emperor’s palace, with beatings and even beheadings for disobedience, meant that life for the ordinary Chinese people still seemed quite basic and strict.

I have always enjoyed Rutherfurd’s stories and China is another masterpiece.

I have always loved Edward Rutherford's books and this is no exception. He has written about the Boxer rebellion in China over the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries that began over opium. His characters, as always are so personable so one really cares what happens to them. It is a long saga and just the thing for a summer holiday to disappear for hours into another world.

Apologies for not giving full feedback on this book but I just wanted to let you all know that I am really enjoying it. Having been totally swept away by New York I was really looking forward to reading this but due to a reading block in the last couple of weeks and other things going on I am only at 20% but so engrossed in the story and, whereas normally I would rush through a book to get to the end I am really savouring this book and letting it last like an excellent tot of malt whisky :-)
I appreciate it is publication day today and so the book will be withdrawn but I am hoping to be able to buy the book in order to finish it.
An amazing story, that is totally different, and told by a master of the faction genre.

I was excited to start this book as I've previously read and loved Russka and Sarum.
This book starts in 1938 with the Opium Wars and foreign invasions (from Britain and Europe) and ends with the Boxer Rebellion in 1901.
I really didn't know much about the Opium Wars or life at the court of the Royal Chinese Emperor before reading this so it was fascinating! There is so much detail and I really feel I know this period of history so much better having read this book.
It is narrated by a whole host of characters: British/American traders, missionaries, poor Chinese peasants, merchants etc.but my favourite part of the story by far was that of Lacquer Nail, the Eunuch. He worked as the manicurist for the Empress Cixi. I loved reading about the political intrigue and scandals in the Forbidden City, all told through his eyes.
I loved the way the book moved between the different storylines and characters which were often cleverly interlinked by the author.
This book took me a while to read (at 800+ pages) but I would definitely recommend it to lovers of historical fiction. I am sorry to have finished it and will need to leave it a few days before picking up a new book. I will definitely be reading more books by this fantastic author.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this eARC.

Having enthralled millions of readers with his grand, sweeping historical sagas that tell the history of a famous place over multiple generations, Rutherfurd has excelled once again. Now, in China: The Novel, he takes readers into the rich and fascinating milieu of the Middle Kingdom. This seventy-year family saga starts in the nineteenth century, during the reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria. Through the human stories of British, American and Chinese families, the novel tells the sweeping and dramatic tale of how the West met the exotic Empire of China and humiliated her. The history it relates led directly to the tragic events of the twentieth century and the attitude of China towards the rest of the world today. Nineteenth-Century China was a proud and ancient empire, ruled by the Manchu and forbidden to foreigners. The West, and Britain in particular, had an unquenchable appetite for Chinese tea, but lacked the silver to buy it.

So western merchant adventurers resorted to smuggling in opium in exchange. The Chinese Emperor, determined to prevent his people from sinking into addiction, sent the incorruptible Viceroy Lin to Canton, the main hub of the opium trade, to stop it. The British sent gunboats, and the Opium Wars began - heralding a period of bloody military defeats, reparations, and one-sided treaties which became known in China as the Century of Humiliation. From Hong Kong to Beijing to the Great Wall, from the exotic wonders of the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, to squalid village huts, the dramatic struggle rages across the Celestial Kingdom. This is the story of the Chinese people, high and low, and the Westerners who came to exploit the riches of their ancient land and culture. We meet a young village wife struggling with the rigid traditions of her people, Manchu empresses and warriors, powerful eunuchs.

There are fanatical Taiping and Boxer Rebels, savvy Chinese pirates, artists, concubines, scoundrels and heroes, well-intentioned missionaries and the rapacious merchants, diplomats and soldiers of the West. It tells the tale of this mighty clash of world views, of mutual misunderstanding, of fortunes gained, battles fought and love lost, as humanly and honestly as it could be portrayed, as seen from both sides of the divide. I found myself fascinated, made wiser and often moved, and it's immediately clear that Rutherfurd has carried out extensive research in order to provide the intricate detail filling these pages. An intriguing, captivating and eminently readable historical epic, China flows like a thriller and shows us the country in days long befallen to the passage of time and is accurate, exciting and richly immersive. Highly recommended.

Another tour de force from Edward Rutherfurd. Having read some of his earlier books, I was expecting the time-span of this one to be several centuries, especially as it's such a long book. However, it only covers the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth. Rutherfurd's research is impeccable and there are some memorable characters: Cecil Whiteparish the missionary, Shi-Rong the warrior turned governor, beautiful but poor Mei-ling and the gloriously-named eunuch Lacquer Nail. Personally, I prefer Rutherfurd's earlier books (Sarum, The Forest) because I know the area and can envisage where the stories take place. A great story, full of intrigue, passion and rivalry, though very violent at times.

This is the story of China from 1839-1908, from the First Opium War to the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, from multiple British and Chinese viewpoints. There’s certainly a particular interest on British interactions and influences on China in this period, and while the British characters are fleshed out in detail Rutherfurd does give similar attention to the Chinese characters. There’s something quite Dickensian about the characters’ names: our focus in the opening chapters about the Opium War is an everyman trader literally called John Trader (‘not only at cricket, but in life generally, he played with a straight bat’) and his friend Charlie Farley, and a recurring missionary character is Cecil Whiteparish (the Chinese characters are much more vanilla – Mr Liu, Mr Ma, an official called Shi-Rong, a woman called Mei-Ling).

Criticisms of Rutherfurd tend to be that his epic works are essentially vehicles for his own research, and that’s true here. The narrative writing is propulsive and the plotting is intricately planned, but it’s all very slick and dispassionate and, like other epic works, manages to feel both immeasurably vast and yet barely skimming the surface of events. None of the characters talk or act like real human beings and it’s hard to develop deep connections with them. The British characters do think ripe things like ‘So this was China. Fearsome. Picturesque. Mysterious… What were they thinking? He had no idea’ and the Chinese characters have ‘high Mongol cheekbones, no doubt like those of Genghis Khan’ and say things like ‘Look at that! The mighty Yellow River in all its majesty and power. The soul of our ancient land. How lucky we are to live here’ or ‘That is an impertinence to the Celestial Kingdom, Excellency’. The romances are particularly frigid: John Trader and his Macanese lover ‘made passionate love and he told her he didn’t want to go…and she was sad’; later, his marriage is ‘a most successful event, the bride was lovely’.

That’s all OK in a sense, the characters’ purpose here is to whisk us from event to event via little cultural vignettes. It does feel quick tickboxy – the plot is engineered to take us to gratuitous but interesting places (West Lake, Jingdezhen, Guilin, Shaolin); to incorporate notable figures (Jardine and Matheson, Elgin, Backhouse, Lin Zexu, Cixi herself); and to delve into interesting aspects of Chinese culture (footbinding, calligraphy, Li Bai, oracle bones, the examinations, the banner system, flower boats, the sewage system of the Forbidden City and much, much more…). This isn’t to denigrate Rutherfurd’s research, which is clearly impressive (it gets a Julia Lovell seal of approval, I note), but it feels more like he is aiming to impress and inform, not entertain. At its best, the length and scope of China allows space to explore some themes really well (the passage about the eunuch Lacquer Nail’s early life is excellent); at its worst it reads like a textbook. The first time we see Beijing, for instance, we are given a multi-paragraph history of the city that would suffice as a short encyclopaedia article (‘Jiang knew that the people who called themselves the Han – his people – had built a walled city on the site three thousand years ago…’ and so on for ten paragraphs). I wonder if Rutherfurd’s editor was a little overawed.

The whole book is at its best putting you in the thick of events with a clear narrative viewpoint – the sacking of Yuanmingyuan, for instance – and weakest when the plot lulls and we are left to focus on the characters’ lives. It’s not entirely evenly balanced either - I felt short-changed by the sections on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, but to be fair I can never get enough about the Taiping.

China is fine and I am impressed by its sheer heft – I’d recommend it to someone who wanted to learn more about Chinese history and had plenty of time to burn. But if this is your type of thing, Flashman and the Dragon covers the same ground much better, and is much more fun.

This is a monster of a book at over 800 pages, so it did take me a bit of time to get through!

Not one of those minutes was wasted though...this is an epic story, following many different people whose lives intertwine beautifully in different ways.

I’ve been to China, and I studied quite a lot about the culture and the sights to see before I went, so for me this was extra special to see it all come to life and to be able to visualise what was happening where (I've seen the concrete boat for example!).

Not once did this book waffle, or lose its way which some larger books can sometimes do, it held me front start to finish.

Just absolutely wonderful!

My thanks to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the advance copy!

Taking a recent period in China’s long history Edward Rutherford has created a epic tale of love, loss , deception and intrigue. Real history mixed with superb fiction has created a tour de force.

First of all, this book is an absolute BEAST! Don't expect to read it in one sitting, or even five. It's huge. However, it is absolutely fantastic and you'll be sad it's finished!
The story covers the Opium Wars up to the Boxer Rebellion, a lot of which I did not know about. There is an amazing level of detail in the book and ended up learning about a fascinating piece of history.
I will certainly be reading Edward Rutherfurd's other books!

Rutherford has written some amazing books. For me, China is the epic and his best. Right from the first page, I was drawn into a different and mysterious world, one which I first explored in novels by Amitav Ghosh. Rutherford’s research and attention to historical fact and detail is meticulous and this book is filled with characters who the reader sees develop and follows over the years.

There are political intrigues, diplomacy, cultural differences, traditions, jealousies, rivalries, greed...everything is there. I found it a totally subversive read. One I could pick up and be transported to different times and issues and that’s the skill of a truly great storyteller. Cant oraise this enough.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

It was no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed "China", as "Sarum" (by the same author) is among my favourite books of all time. Edward Rutherfurd packs his writing full of atmosphere, his characters full of life, and his plots full of that "one more chapter" factor that keeps you reading way past your bedtime and sneaking in a few more pages whenever there is a few minutes to spare. "China" is truly outstanding.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Another sprawling tale of a historical era from this master of the craft. From the Opium wars to the Boxer rebellion characters from both sides Chinese and European have their stories told all cleverly interlocking. Eunuchs and peasants, traders and religious evangelists all have interesting tales told in this lovely epic leading to the time of the last emperor. Clever use of actual events make for a fascinating worthwhile read.

An excellent read. The way Edward Rutherford weaves a single story of inter connected lives whilst covering historical events is inspired. This reminded me of the style and engaging approach of his earlier novel, New York.

For avid fans of Edward Rutherford, yet another wonderful historical novel! China portrays the tensions and inequalities in the history of the Opium Wars and the subsequent Boxer Rebellion at the height of the British Empire. Narrated through the fictional character, palace eunuch, Lacquer Nail, the novel provides an insight into the authority of the Dowager Empress Cixi as regent and her ability to hold power for so long. I must admit, before I began reading China, I was expecting the novel to begin at an earlier time in history than the 18th century as with Rutherford’s previous novels. However, China more than compensated with the vivid portrayal of historical characters and events of a fascinating moment in Chinese history.