Her fiction emphasizes strong female characters, such as Jiang Qing, the wife of chairman Mao Zedong, and Empress Dowager Cixi, the last ruling empress of China.
It followed the (fictional) quest of two children, Jules and Julie, in their travels across Eurasia seeking to overthrow the Empress Dowager of China, and consequently, release their fathers from imprisonment.
PNG"?title=Empress Dowager Cixi">Empress Dowager Cixi and servants on a boat in Zhonghai in the early 1900s.
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During the reign of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Empress Dowager and the Emperor would often live in the Zhongnanhai compound, travelling to the Forbidden City only for ceremonial duties.
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His ideas inspired a reformation movement that was supported by the Guangxu Emperor but loathed by Empress Dowager Cixi, about whom, according to Sterling Seagrave he invented many of the stories which stained her reputation.
The Empress Dowager Cixi presented Pekingese to several Americans, including John Pierpont Morgan and Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, who named it Manchu.
The Empress Dowager Cixi of China loved pink tourmaline and bought large quantities for gemstones and carvings from the then new Himalaya Mine, located in San Diego County, California.