We pretty much all agreed this was a good story with interesting characters. We also learnt a lot about the Gold Rush and the founding of San Francisco which was very interesting.
We found Tai Chien to be the most interesting character and loved the descriptions of his life in China. We were also intrigued by Rose and the limitations that have been placed on her life by society. We did find however, that the novel wasn't always utterly convincing and found that in places it was too 'busy' - too many characters were introduced for no apparent reason and certain threads were not tied up at the end - for instance we longed to know more about Rose. We liked the main charcater Eliza.
I wouldn't call this a great novel, it's a good novel- an entertaining read with likeable characters and some great description, but too many diversions!

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