Fourth in the series about the vampire St. Germain. Of course these are more historical novels than about the vampire, having an immortal character lets you show a lot of history. And Yarbro always has St. Germain end up in places that are soon to erupt in war, that being more interesting than someplace peaceful. I found this book to be a lot harder to get through than the previous three. St. Germain is living in China but foreigners are not welcome, and he's exiled to the small holding of a female war-lord fighting off the Mongols. We all know how that's going to go, and soon he's on the run again to what I think was Tibet, and then into India. I'm sure Yarbro has done her research on the politics and major events of the time period, so the look at events from this micro POV is interesting...but I found the character names and the place names so unfamiliar and long that it really slowed down my reading. Plus the dialogue, which is emulating the stilted formality of the culture - no doubt correct, but sure takes a long time to get through. A map would have helped too; I could have looked up the names I know, but I lacked motivation to spend more time with this book. St. Germain is so tightly controlled that even when Yarbro describes his violent emotion, it doesn't feel like much. Yarbro also puts in a number of letters from characters that don't relate to the action until the final page; I guess she wanted to put something in about early Christianity in China but for me it just made the book longer.
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