It is 1861. Growing up deep in the mountains of rural Japan, Sachi has always felt different, her pale skin and fine features setting her apart from her friends and family.

Then, when she is just eleven, her life is turned upside down when an imperial princess passes through her village and sweeps her off to the women's palace in the great city of Edo. Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi is chosen as his concubine.

But Japan is changing. Black Ships have come from the West, bringing foreigners eager to add Japan to their colonial empires. As civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life.

Rescued by a rebel warrior, she falls in love. But before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must unravel the mystery of her own origins – a mystery that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her.

Set in one of the most tumultuous eras in Japanese history, Sachi’s story is a potent mix of adventure and high romance. From the timeless beauty of the women’s palace in Edo to bloody battles fought outside its walls, The Last Concubine is an epic evocation of a country in revolution, and of a young woman’s quest to find out who she really is.

Praise for Lesley Downer

“Lesley Downer has taken the essential truth of geisha culture – its mystery – and peeled it away layer after layer like an onion. I highly recommend her engaging and enlightening examination of this little-known world.”
– Arthur Golden, author Memoirs of a Geisha

“Lesley Downer…has succeeded in penetrating this intensely secret and rapidly vanishing world and describing it brilliantly.”
–Sunday Telegraph

“Downer is an agile and evocative writer who treats this sensational tale with consistent elegance.”
–The Times