SILK ROAD takes you into the golden age of China's multi-cultural Tang dynasty. Aided by ghosts, goddesses, dragons, and her own determination, the heroine becomes a courtesan, a musician, a runaway, a wandering swordswoman, a poet, and more.

"Larsen has used a dazzling diversity of prose styles to adroitly demonstrate how history is transmuted through the centuries into something not quite true, yet not entirely false...an illuminating and absorbing story."

“This first novel accommodates much merriment, and moments of sadness and joy, as this feminist tale of mother- and sister-bonding draws together….Silk Road, in its prodigal layering of narratives, projects the theme of the artist as inventor of history.”

—Edna Stumpf, The New York Times