Publication Date: February 10, 2026
From the internationally bestselling author of The Porcelain Moon comes a haunting Gothic novel set in 1911 China. Two young women living in a crumbling, once-grand Shanghai mansion face danger as secrets of their pasts come to light, even as the mansion’s own secret threatens the present.
Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity and meld with haunted visions of a woman in red. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her.
Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas, away from the shadows of another earlier tragedy. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. At the same party, the notorious princess Masako Kyo approaches Lisan with questions about the young woman’s family that the orphaned Lisan can’t answer.
As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’s mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years. All the while, strange incidents accelerate, driving Lisan to doubt her sanity as Lennox Manor seems unwilling to release her until she fulfills demands from beyond the grave.
An orphan learns the secret of her identity in an intriguing novel set in early 20th-century Shanghai in The Fourth Princess.
Author Janie Chang uses a country estate as the setting for a Gothic tale featuring an American couple who move into Lennox Manor and the young Chinese woman hired as a secretary.
Both Caroline Stanton and Lisan Liu wrestle with supernatural forces connected to past secrets. For Caroline, an unexpected visitor puts her future in jeopardy. For Lisan, her nightmares link childhood memories to a former resident of the mansion.
The author brings to life the challenges foreigners face in Shanghai, particularly those related to cultural differences. It is interesting to see how both female main characters grow throughout the story.
The Fourth Princess delivers a story packed with secrets and intrigue, coupled with historical details.
Janie Chang is a Globe and Mail bestselling author of historical fiction. Born in Taiwan, Chang has lived in the Philippines, Iran, Thailand, New Zealand, and Canada. Her novels often draw from family history and ancestral stories. She has a degree in computer science and is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio Program at Simon Fraser University. She is the author of Three Souls, Dragon Springs Road, The Library of Legends, and The Porcelain Moon; and co-author of the USA Today bestseller The Phoenix Crown, with Kate Quinn.
