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Headlong This book grabbed me and took me headlong into a furious chase. Enjoyed every minute of it. Well written, well crafted.

Excellent book Unique story line with very good writing. Somewhat predictable at times but enjoyed it anyway. There were no proof-reading errors. That helps me enjoy the storyline better as I am not correcting the material and getting off track.Recommend for an enjoyable read.

Indiana Georgia! An amazing elixir. A tour de force read. Merging the magic of the past with the mayhem of the present A H Wang created a masterpiece. I recommend this totally. Cannot wait to read Book 2.

Wow I'm an avid reader and rarely write reviews. I found this story original, the characters engaging and the end of the book left me wanting more. Wang is an excellent writer, I can tell she is passionate about her work. I look forward to reading everything she publishes in the future.

What A Story! Not only is the concept of the spider in the story fascinating, the characters in the story make it come alive. And what a fantastic way to learn about Taiwan!

If offered the elixir for eternal life, would you take it? January 29, 2021A Review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book:“The Imperial Alchemist” by W. H. WangI purchased this book on Amazon in the Kindle format. It sounded so interesting even though this genre of book is not on the top of my list but since I love History, I took a chance. I am happy I did. This book was both interesting it was superbly entertaining and gave me some insight into Chinese history and thought.A servant of first Emperor of a unified China, the same Emperor responsible for the Great Wall, which came into existence under Qin Shi Huang, who also sought to live forever, and sent a trusted aristocrat named Hsu Fu to find the “elixir of life” supposedly located in the Pengai Mountains, the fabled home of the Eight Immortals. He sailed east with a fleet of ships, hundreds of sailors but they never returned.A little over two thousand years later. An Australian professor of archaeology named Georgia Lee, of Chinese ancestry, who is involved in an archaeological “dig” of significant importance, regarding the First Emperor of China on behalf of the university where she teaches. Distraught over losing her archaeological grant, she is contacted by a prominent billionaire named Mark Lambert who offers her a job. The job is to find Hsu Fu who he believes is still alive and to find the source of the elixir of life. Lambert believes that this discovery could have significant use in his pharmaceutical business in helping humanity overcome deadly and inherited diseases. After considerations she agrees with Lambert to take on this project.As the search for this location the story takes on a number of mysteries that are intriguing and compelling to the reader. The characters, some related to Lambert and others related to Professor Georgia Lee, namely her grand mother who is well read and inquisitive woman who also works at a museum on Chinese culture in Taiwan who provides Georgia with significant background information identifying the location of the Pengai mountains as well as some historical background on Hsu Fu the original emissary sent by the first Emperor.The story continues with a number of twists and turns reminiscent of numerous stories seeking the truth about legendary myths.The story as it unfolds, has many intriguing and unexpected developments as well as some predictable side events. There is a romantic twist that become a possible dist ration to Georgia Lees quest which adds greater interest to the story as it is played out.The real question which drives the reader on, is whether the “elixir of life” is real and reachable after more than two thousand years. It certainly kept my interests focused and I found my self staying up late a couple of nights and left me with a conundrum, if the finding of this elixir will be of benefit to human kind and would I really want to live forever. I still can't decide but the answer of whether Georgia finds this objective will have to be determined by the readers.I totally enjoyed this book and it kept me on the edge through out its pages. I happily gave this book four stars out of five primarily because of the predictability, for me, of the unfolding events. I would unhesitatingly, however, recommend this fast paced story to all of my friend that enjoy a well written historical mystery.

Present voice writing was irritating I confess that I approached this novel with a bias: having read (and reread) Katherine Neville's stupendous novel, "The Eight", I felt that no one else could even begin to approach the complexity of plot and simply superb writing that she demonstrated in a story about the elixir of life. I don't think that I found myself wrong, either. Although the history was intriguing and obviously well-researched, I found the characters to be flat, stale and just a touch two-dimensional, while the plot was unsurprising. I felt the present-voice writing was simply an irritant throughout the novel, too. The writing and editing were, otherwise, basically well-done; very few errors in grammar to be found even by the pickiest of readers. But it is not one of those novels which I plan to re-read for the sheer pleasure of meeting once more the characters and their intrigue and depth.