The Red Queen - A Transcultural Tragicomedy

" When I was a little child, I pined for a red silk skirt " So begins The Red Queen - the tale of how a young girl in eighteenth-century Korea is picked from obscurity to be consort to the Crown Prince. Though inhabiting a jade, silk and jewelled world, the Crown Princess must also contend with the murderous impulses of her husband, Sado, who is touched by madness. Two hundred years later, the Crown Princess's story has a deep and far-reaching effect on Dr Babs Haliwell, an academic on her way to a conference in South Korea. Haunted by the Red Queen's ghost, Babs feels that she must do something to keep her story alive... but what is it ?