The Phoenix Crown follows the lives of opera singer Gemma Garland, botanist Alice Eastwood and Chinese Suling Feng in San Francisco, leading up to the big earthquake of 1906.
Gemma is a very talented soprano, but because she has terrible migraines she’s still singing in the chorus. She has come to San Francisco to save her career and to find her friend Nellie. However, when she arrives, Nellie has vanished into thin air.
Suling is an orphan, working for a laundry in Chinatown by day and doing some waitressing by night. In her free time, she makes spectacular embroidery. She’s searching for the love of her life Reggie, who suddenly disappeared.
Gemma’s benefactor, Henry Thornton, has a party where he introduces Gemma to society, Alice is attending and Suling is working as a waitress. Gemma is a tremendous success and Thornton pulls some strings so she can sing with the opera phenomenon Caruso the night before the earthquake.
This book was a fabulous read. I was engrossed in Gemma’s and Suling’s lives from the get go. Alice Eastwood was a self-taught botanist and she was a very impressive lady – find out more about her on this Wikipedia page.
Read for the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2024.
Prompt 21: A book that came out in a year that ends with “24”.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
