You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO request comes to us from Kate and she’s hoping to find this historical or historical-adjacent romance:
I read this at the latest in the mid-90s. It was set in either Ancient China or a fantasy version of it. The heroine is grouped together with a bunch of other women competing to be the bride of a widowed prince.
Part of the competition is that they have to have a painting made of them to show the king, but because of shenanigans, the artist makes her painting look deformed and old. Later in the story, the hero sees her running and something in the way she runs reminds him of why he loved his late wife, and he goes in search of her. From what I can remember of her, she was feisty and not interested in the competition, but needed to help her family.
This sounds kind of…charming.
I have no idea what this book is, but I want to read it!
ANY chance its Imperial Lady, by Andre Norton? There’s a lot of overlap, although the protagonist ends up married to a Mongolian warlord. Its available on kindle!
Silver Snow, the beautiful daughter of a disgraced general of the Imperial Army, has always lived in exile. Far from the heart of the empire she has been free to learn the arts of war and hunting. Her only female companion is her maid Willow, an enchanting girl who talks to wild animals,
But an Imperial Envoy changes Silver Snow’s simple life forever. The Emperor has ended his year of mourning for the death of his Chief Consort, and has summoned five hundred maidens to fill his halls with life and laughter. Here is a chance for Silver Snow to change her father’s bad fortune. Gathering the last shreds of her family’s wealth she and Willow prepare for the journey.
But Silver Snow is totally unprepared for the intense politics of the Lady’s Court. and is shamed for her lack of feminine virtues. Unwittingly she offends the Chief Eunuch, who will paint the portraits viewed by the Emperor. The resulting portrait is so horrible that the Emperor orders Silver Snow confined to the Cold Palace. . . for the rest of her life.
But Fate is not finished with Silver Snow, and after only a year of confinement she is called before the Emperor and, to her utter astonishment, elevated to Princess Royal as his adopted daughter – and immediately sent to Mongolia as the bond in a peace agreement between the Hsuing-nu and Imperial China.
Now she will travel beyond the Great Wall to the mysterious land of the Mongolian tribes, the place that brought disgrace to her father. And she goes as bride to a man she has never seen. Along the way several of her ladies are attacked by something that lurks in the night but cannot be seen.
Upon arriving in the summer encampment Silver Snow learns that her marriage is a sham, the Chief is too old and feeble to truly take a bride. She is given to Strong Tongue, his first wife, and ultimately forced into slavery. Strong Tongue is a powerful Shamaness who is determined to make her son Chief…and will kill anyone who gets in her way.
Though she has fallen in love with the Chief’s youngest son, Silver Snow valiantly struggles to keep the old chief alive. But she is an outsider, and her maid a changeling…who will stand beside her against Strong Tongue, and what will she do when the old Chief dies?
I don’t know the book, but it sounds like it’s based Wang Zhaojun’s story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zhaojun
My first thought was Princess Academy by Shannon Hill but that’s not China and the prince isn’t a widower. Still, if you’re looking for well-written “young woman stuck competing for the hand of the prince while trying to help her family” it doesn’t get much better!
Kathy, this is Kate, it was totally Imperial Lady! Thank you so much,8 I’ve been trying to find it for years!
Its available on Kindle Unlimited! I’m totally going to re-read it now 🙂
If you enjoy this one, Andre Norton has written several romances, many of them historicals.