When defenders of the British royal family scrounged around for dirt on Wallis Simpson, the divorced U.S.-born fiancee of King Edward VIII, they often highlighted her year spent in China—often sharing scurrilous, and poorly-sourced–if not entirely unfounded–details of her time there.

China historian Paul French tries to set the record straight with Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson (St. Martins: 2024). Simpson managed to have a jam-packed year, with time spent in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, as different warlords fought for control of China.

Paul French was born in London and lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. He received the Mystery Writers’ of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime and a Crime Writers’ Association (UK) Dagger award for non-fiction. Both Midnight in Peking and his latest book City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir are currently in development for film.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Her Lotus Year. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon.

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Nostradamus: Seer or Schemer? Pt. 2