Skip to main content
Books: The Mandate Of Heaven
Tim Murgatroyd brings his epic trilogy of novels set in medieval China to a stirring end in The Mandate Of Heaven, says STEPHEN LEWIS

Central China, 1304 AD. Hou-Ming is a city of ghosts on the shores of a giant lake, a vast graveyard for victims slaughtered by invading Mongol hordes.

Amid the ruins, three Chinese children meet and forge a friendship that will change their lives.

So begins The Mandate of Heaven, the third and concluding part of Tim Murgatroyd's powerful trilogy of novels set in medieval China.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
boix
Literature / 22 June 2026
22 June 2026

From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together

PS
Books / 29 January 2026
29 January 2026

JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime

Telling ‘Silk Road stories’ for a multipolar world
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development

genocide
Books / 4 July 2025
4 July 2025

JOHN HAWKINS welcomes the passion, grief, precision and elegance of an eloquent witness of genocide