I wanted to love this book, I really did. But it was just too difficult to follow. I think that is due to the fact that this is based on a much studied actual historical figure, so many of then descriptions of ceremonies and official writings of the Empress Wu were pulled out of actual historical documents, but did little to move the narrative forward. It was like when I can across a passage about this amazing event, or the details of the palaces described, it just stopped, and I couldn't place the characters that I was already having trouble following into the description.