"This is a beautifully written novel, focusing upon a largely forgotten world of shuttered passions and tragic alliances. Martha Merop is surely one of the great characters of fiction, rising above personal tragedy in her determination to send her name in

"This magnificent novel brings to vibrant life an exceptional period in the evolution of a great Asian trading city, vividly evoking the unique hybrid culture that developed there." --David Brookshaw, Professor of Portuguese, University of Bristol and tran

"Austin Coates is an author with far more expertise than others who have tried to explore the history and customs of Hong Kong and Macau. City of Broken Promises is a well-paced and intuitive look at the real-life character, Martha Merop a lively, grippin

Austin Coates (1922-97), a former senior British civil servant in Hong Kong, Malaya, and Sarawak, left government service at age forty to pursue a professional writing career. Widely regarded as the most distinguished English-language author in Hong Kong, Coates remained a long-time Hong Kong resident, later dividing his time between Hong Kong and Portugal, where he died. The City of Broken Promises is a companion to his two other books on Macao A Macao Narrative and Macao and the British. Both these books and his other novel, The Road, are also available in the Echoes series from Hong Kong University Press.