Coming Soon
Beware the Sleeping Tiger
Second historical novel in the Opium Trilogy
As the First Opium War of the 1830s ignites China, the Western trading center, Canton, becomes a crucible of betrayal and ambition. Li-Mǐn, an English-educated barrister and spy with ties to Forbidden Palace nobility, fights the British beside a doomed army before fleeing 1,200 perilous miles to Beijing to reclaim his true identity, Prince Dun. Once there, only to find himself a threat to his brother’s throne and a stranger to his wife, Lady Xu, and daughter, ‘Willow’—the child he’s never met.
Meanwhile, American opium trader Abiel Low embarks on a trans-ocean passage aboard Milo in pursuit of faster, so-called ‘clipper’ ships and greater fortune, encountering storms and natural disasters, all while crossing paths with naturalist Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle.
Two journeys, worlds apart, converge in an age being violently reshaped by imperial power, illicit wealth, and the dawn of the modern age.
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About the Author
Richard J. Friswell writes deeply researched historical fiction, combining his academic insight as a Visiting Scholar in cultural history at Wesleyan University with a storyteller’s eye. He is the author of his upcoming Opium Trilogy, starting with Merchants of Deceit: Opium, American fortune & the China trade (2nd edition, 2024), which uncovers the dark side of the 19th-century China Trade, and the acclaimed Hudson River Chronicles, exploring the 19th-century world of American painter Thomas Cole. He lives and writes in Branford, CT.
