From the Bookshelf of Our Shared Shelf…

[close] It is a fantasy story about a dark-skinned girl who is sold to a foreigner and raised to be something like a courtesan. It starts out about her quest for freedom from this strange mixture of privilege and oppression, but it becomes much more. It touches on topics of human trafficking, race issues, women's issues, and economic issues. One of the things I really like is that the character's understanding of such issues changes as she grows up and discovers that things are much more complex than they seem.