The Red Thread: A Chinese Tale of Love and Fate in 1830s Singapore (The Straits Quartet)

Like Chinese silk, The Red Thread is, by turns, gentle and strong, exploring a love that breaks through the divide of race and culture, a love that is both deeply physical and a marriage of souls. Set against the backdrop of 1830s Singapore where piracy, crime, triads and tigers are commonplace, this cultural romance follows the struggle of two lovers: Zhen, once the lowliest of Chinese coolies and triad member, later chosen to marry into a Peranakan family of Baba Chinese merchants; and Charlotte, an 18-year-old Scots girl and sister of Singapore's Chief of Police. Two cultures bound together by the invisible threads of fate yet separated by cultural diversity. In this first volume of The Straits Quartet, Dawn Farnham incorporates real figures from Singapore’s historical past and brings to life the heady atmosphere of Old Singapore, where exotic beliefs and customs clash and jostle in the struggle to make a life and create mutual understanding between peoples from different worlds.

Dawn Farnham is the author of The Red Thread, The Shallow Seas, The Hills of Singapore and The English Concubine (which comprise The Straits Quartet, a bestselling series of historical romance set in 19th-century Singapore), A Crowd of Twisted Things, a novel set in 1950 Singapore, as well as numerous short stories, plays and children’s books. A former longterm resident of Singapore, Dawn now calls Perth, Australia, home.