The Red Queen - Hardcover

The novels of the incomparable Margaret Drabble are a delight . The Washington Post says that reading them has become something of a rite of passage . The Los Angeles Times says she is ' as meticulous as Jane Austen and as deadly as Evelyn Waugh ' . In this book, Barbara Halliwell, on a grant at Oxford, receives an unexpected package . a memoir by a Korean crown princess, written more than 200 years ago . A highly appropriate gift for Barbara's impending trip to Seoul . But from whom ? . The story she avidly reads on the plane turns out to be one of great intrigue as well as tragedy . The Crown Princess Hyegyong recounts in extraordinary detail the ways of the Korean court two hundred years before, and confesses the family dramas that left her childless, and her husband dead by his own hand . Perhaps it is the loss of a child that resonates so deeply with Barbara . but she has little time to think of such things, as she has just arrived in Korea . She meets a certain Dr. Oo, and , to her surprise and delight, he offers to guide her to some of the haunts of the crown princess . As Barbara explores the inner sanctums and the royal courts, she beings to feel a strong affinity for everything related to the princess and her mysterious life . After a brief, intense, and ill-fated love affair, she returns to London . Is she ensnared by the events of the past week, of the past 200 years, or will she pick up her life where she left off ? . A beautifully told and ingeniously constructed novel, this is Margaret Drabble at her best . " The Red Queen - A Transcultural Tragicomedy " by Margaret Drabble . published by Harcourt, Florida