"A group of women, the jin-shei sisterhood, form a uniquely powerful circle that transcends class and social custom. They are bound together by a declaration of loyalty that transcends all other vows, even those with the gods, by their own secret language, passed from mother to daughter, by the knowledge that some of them will have to pay the ultimate sacrifice to enable others to fulfill their destiny.
The sisterhood we meet run from the Emperor's sister to the street-beggar, from the trainee warrior in the Emperor's Guard to the apprentice healer, from the artist to the traveller-girl, herself an illegitimate daughter of an emperor and seen as a threat to the throne. And as one of them becomes Dragon Empress, her determination to hold power against the sages of the temple, against the marauding forces from other kingdoms, drags the sisterhood into a dangerous world of court intrigue, plot and counterplot, and brings them into conflict with each other from which only the one who remains true to all the vows she made at the very beginning to the dying Princess Empress can rescue them.
An amazing and unusual book, based on some historical fact, full of drama, adventure and conflict like a Shakespearean history play, it's a novel about kinship and a society of women, of mysticism, jealousy, fate, destiny, all set in the wonderful, swirling background of Syai, a fantasy kingdom inspired by Imperial China."
The novel has been published in thirteen languages worldwide (including Hebrew, Lithuanian, Catalan, Turkish, as well as the more global Spanish, German, and Portuguese…) and continues to make an impact on readers to this day. It was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavour Award, and in a lesser but equally notable honor the concept of jin-shei had become so entrenched in its context that jin-shei-bao sisters were used as a perfectly "understood" piece of worldbuilding background in fan-fiction based on Joss Whedon's beloved 'Firefly' series.
The concepts of the female language, jin-ashu, and the sisterhood of jin-shei are based in the real-life women's language of Nushu in China, taught for generations from mother to daughter and used as a written (and secret) communication between women. The sisterhood vow is a little stronger in my story than it might have been in reality but these sisters-of-the-heart did (to some extent) exist. The story of "Secrets of Jin-shei" is inspired by a background of Imperial China (although not of any specific dynasty)
