Sino-American Tales

In Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom, author Li Bo has drawn on his knowledge of East Asian civilization to transport listeners to 19th-century China. There a massive civil war is tearing the Qing dynasty apart.

Beyond the Heavenly Kingdom is the second book in a series set in the mid-19th century and follows Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom, which traced the lives of Jason Brandt; his wife, Black Jade; and his scholar friend Wu Sek-chong during the Chinese Civil War. In this second novel, Brandt and Black Jade travel from Shanghai to Boston in the years following the American Civil War. Americans of that era, increasingly anxious about competition from lower wage Chinese immigrants, demanded an end to all immigration from China.

The world is tearing itself apart. As foreign imperialists begin to carve up China, the Brandt family finds itself caught in a devastating geopolitical crossfire. Meanwhile, back in San Francisco’s vibrant Chinatown, the fight for survival hits closer to home. The community becomes the epicenter of a brutal, two-front struggle: fighting to expose the horrific reality of sex slavery and battling for the fundamental civil rights of Chinese Americans.