Author: Amanda Roberts

Amanda Roberts builds historical fiction around her interest in China, imperial politics, and the preservation of material culture. The Emperor’s Seal opens her Touching Time sequence in Peking in 1902. Jiayi can enter scenes from the past by touching historical objects, while historian Zhihao wants support for a museum devoted to Chinese history. Their search for the missing imperial seal brings those ambitions together during the final years of the Qing dynasty. Roberts uses the seal as both a political symbol and a link between periods, allowing the speculative device to illuminate competing ideas about power, ownership, and historical memory. The Emperor’s Seal was published in 2018 and is followed by further Touching Time stories, including The Empress’s Dagger and The Slave’s Necklace. Roberts also writes Qing Dynasty mysteries, so the novel belongs to a broader body of fiction that returns repeatedly to Chinese settings, archives, and contested artifacts.