Lady Tan's Circle Of Women by Lisa See

 

Tan Yunxian loses her mother at a young age when her bound feet become infected.  Tan is sent to be raised by her father's parents as his government position requires constant travel.  Tan loves her grandparents, especially her grandmother who is one of the few Chinese women doctors and who trains Tan in her profession.  She is also introduced to the best friend she will ever have, Meiling.  Meiling is the daughter of the local midwife and learning that profession.  While the two girls are of different social status, they develop a friendship that cannot be broken.

When Tan is fifteen, she is married to the man picked by her father, the son of a rich merchant family.  Once she is inside the gates there, she is not to leave.  She must do everything her mother-in-law says and her only purpose is to have a son that can carry on the family name.  Tan cannot give up her knowledge and slowly begins to treat some of the women in the household.  There are many as a rich family's women consists of all the wives of the family, the children, the concubines and the spinsters and widows of the family.

Lisa See is Chinese American and her books are based on extensive research.  In this book, Tan Yunxian was a real person and a real woman doctor.  The reader learns about Chinese medicine and culture, the practice of bound feet and their purpose, and the scheming and duplicity that often arose in the large group of women living in the inner chambers.  It focuses on the real love between Tan and Meiling as well as the love each woman had for her husband and children.  This book is recommended for readers of historical and women's fiction.