Sin in the Forbidden City

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 Morgan, born destitute on Manhattan's Lower East Side, learned to battle to survive among rats, killers, and thieves on the streets, masking her femininity to avoid beatings. She became a caulker in the Brooklyn shipyards and gained respect rapidly. Morgan joined the Union Navy at 14 to defend the Eastern Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico against Confederates for four years, fighting several sea battles and seeing naval tactics transform. Morgan and a companion witnessed a small sinking ship while on patrol in the final months of the war and found something that transformed their lives.
Morgan bought a three-masted ship with a small boiler for propulsion and enlisted a skilled crew, most of whom had served together during the war and sailed the same waters as ancient explorers. Captain Morgan Ryan saved three survivors of the sunken Chinese ship from a Japanese Imperial Navy attack near southern China. A miscalculation and an unexpected typhoon in the Philippine Sea stranded them on a barren, undiscovered tropical island for a month. Captain Morgan and the three survivors blended Eastern and Western cultures with surprising results. Captain Morgan fell in love with the heir to the Chinese throne after the emperor was slain.
Morgan journaled from the Civil War to her adulthood. After decades of lobbying by her life partners, she gathered her diaries and family tales into a single volume, which we are honored to offer.