China Silk — Florence Hurd

A woman on top of the world -- facing the painful realities of her past...China. A grand mysterious land of fathomless tradition and historical revolution. And, to brilliant young executives like Marianne Oliver, a new frontier for American business, ripe with lucrative, unexplored prospects -- not the least of which was the secret of the rich, wondrous silk coveted for centuries throughout the world.

Yet China was more than the pinnacle of Marianne's glorious career -- it was the land of her birth...and the home of her mother, who had abandoned her long ago.

For Marianne had risen to the top all alone, a virtual orphan struggling to defy the big, powerful world. Her whirlwind success stunned the haughty Hansfords, titillated the rakish Gregory Windham, gladdened the devoted Brad Young...yet her austere, scholarly mother remained aloof. Here, in majestic Canton, she would at last face them all -- the traitor to be conquered, the lover to be sacrificed, the man to be discovered, and the mother longing to be understood.