The Apothecary Diaries

Maomao, a seventeen-year-old apothecary from the pleasure district, is kidnapped and sold to the Imperial Rear Palace as a lowly maid. Determined to keep her head down, she hides her sharp mind and pharmaceutical expertise — at least until the consorts' newborn princes start dying from a mysterious illness. With one well-placed warning about lead poisoning in face powder, Maomao saves the favored Consort Gyokuyou's daughter and accidentally catches the eye of the Rear Palace's most beautiful eunuch, Jinshi.

Promoted to Gyokuyou's personal taster and roped into one investigation after another, Maomao navigates the venomous politics of four consorts, two thousand court ladies, and an Emperor whose every smile hides a calculation. Each chapter is a puzzle in poisons, herbs, and human nature — a banquet's missing dish, a courtesan's strange illness, a child consort's broken vase, a hairpin turned silver-black in a pot of eggs.

Behind every mystery lies a deeper one: who is Jinshi, really, and why does the Empire's most graceful eunuch keep dragging a maid into matters of state? As Maomao climbs from washerwoman to medical officer, from courtesan's adopted daughter to advisor of strategists, the answers tangle past, present and future of a court where one wrong taste of tea can rewrite a dynasty.