A Cold Season in Shanghai
Shanghai, in the years before World War One. Tatiana and her family have escaped Tsarist Russia after the peasant revolt of 1905 and are making a new life in the international section of China’s most glamorous city. Making friends among the Chinese elite and the international community, Tatiana and her sister Olga take converging paths—Olga toward the conventional, Tatiana toward Shanghai’s decadent nightlife.
When her unconventional choices lead her to an agonizing moral decision, Tatiana makes a choice which leads to the death of a promising and brilliant young musician, and changes the life of her friends, and her fate, forever.
This is a promising story with interesting characters and good historical detail, but it is marred by uneven pacing, head-jumping points of view, and telling rather than showing. Hozy does a good job evoking the world of Shanghai from 1905 to 1925, but the story did not flow, which is a shame, because the premise and the characters are so promising.
