"Hayter-Menzies takes advantage of his literary talent and cultural sensibility, telling a story about the friendship of two extraordinary women and their experience in a changing world." - Shuo Wang, California State University Stanislaus

"In his meticulously researched and enjoyable dissection of an unlikely relationship between two complex women--an American diplomat's wife Sarah Pike Conger and Cixi, Empress Dowager of China--Grant Hayter-Menzies exposes many paradoxes that still characte

"Sarah Conger's story is worth telling for many reasons. She occupied a point in time that makes her interesting, but the author demonstrates that she is interesting in her own right--a flawed and fascinating individual whose story we want to read not for

"Grant Hayter-Menzies brings his talent for recreating the material, cultural and mental textures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to bear on the story of Sarah Conger. He presents the reader not only a story, not only characters, but

Grant Hayter-Menzies's first book for Hong Kong University Press was Imperial Masquerade The Legend of Princess Der Ling. He is also the biographer of stage and screen stars Charlotte Greenwood and Billie Burke. He lives in Sidney, British Columbia, where he is working on a book about Pauline Benton, the American-born Chinese shadow theater master.