Lady Tan's Circle of Women

I adore good historical fiction, and this rich novel has a murder mystery embedded within to boot.

As a women's doctor in 15th-century China, Lady Tan is an outlier among my favorite female sleuths. She minces around on tiny bound feet and lives in luxurious confinement in the compound of her husband's family, where she is grudgingly allowed to attend to the medical needs of the dozens of first wives, second wives, and concubines in the household. She is keenly observant and when a beloved “auntie” is found face down in the koi pond, Lady Tan risks banishment or worse… show more.

I was transported into an entirely new world in this book.

Yunxian is raised to be an educated women’s doctor in 15th-century China yet is shackled by the constraints of an arranged marriage and the beliefs of the culture at the time. Her friendship with Meiling is powerful – connected and challenging in many ways, and the development of both as they move through this world is at times shocking and heartwarming.

Despite the cultural differences, I could deeply relate to Yunxian through her relationship with her daughters, her universal need to belong, and her desire to use her skills… show more.

Next to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, this is my favorite Lisa See book. The story centers around Tan Yunxian, a young woman living in fifteenth-century China.

Life was not easy for females back then—from foot binding to subservience to men and the pressures of giving birth to a son. Tan Yunxian tries to play along, but in her heart, she is a healer who desires to utilize her extensive knowledge, having been educated by her grandparents—physicians skilled in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Tan Yunxian and her small circle of female friends offer each other support as they forge… show more.

I enjoy historical fiction, and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a wonderful story about the real Tan Yunxian, a female doctor during the Ming Dynasty in China.

From the descriptions of caring for bound feet to treatments for smallpox to the women’s hidden lives inside the compound walls, this is a totally immersive book. Lisa See is a master at making the era come alive with her vivid prose, and I learned so much about this period of history and the way the people lived.

A breathtaking cultural, political, and social portrayal that shows the tremendous burdens a woman carries, no matter what her class or station in life, and how becoming a healer is a subversive act.

Better yet, the protagonist, though what we’d call a feminist, is entirely of her time and place, committed to the social order, and all the more believable for that. This is historical fiction at its finest, a novel that will make you look beyond the depiction of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century China to see our own society.