Repairing the Hive is the third and final book of The Empress Trilogy, a rich and diverse family saga set in Victoria, BC from post-colonial to contemporary times. In this final novel, a newspaper reporter witnesses the repair of the human ‘hive’ after generations of personal, social and cultural upheaval. The first two volumes, The Empress Letters and Tempo Rubato, are told in the first person by two generations of women artists uncovering secrets and lies in a shadowy world of bootlegging, the opium trade and global chaos. The final book offers a third person account of the coming together of a community to bring the post-colonial generation out of the silence.

Linda Rogers’ multi-layered narrative about East meets West finds common ground from the impact of music on our lives. Rogers brilliantly tweaks the musical imagination to pull you into the inner world of the characters.
~ Gary Karr, solo bassist

Linda Rogers is an award-winning poet and the former poet laureate of Victoria, BC. She also writes novels, articles and song lyrics.

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The earlier books of The Empress Trilogy in a new edition reprint:

Volume 1: The Empress Letters

In the pristine gardens of quiet Oak Bay, the von Stronheim family seems perfectly at home, until young Poppy uncovers a mysterious subterranean world in which her mother is involved. Now years later, aboard the ocean liner The Empress of Asia, en route to China in search of her own daughter, Poppy begins a series of letters, determined to reveal the family secrets that shrouded her own life. s she crosses the Pacific towards a hoped for reunion, Poppy relives and relates the extraordinary events of her life. From the proper drawing rooms of turn of the century Victoria, to the Chinatown opium trade and the studio of painter Emily Carr, to the gay London of Tallulah Bankhead, The Empress Letters is a riveting adventure exposing disturbing fractures beneath the smooth veneer of colonial society.

Based on the musical term meaning ‘stolen time,’ Tempo Rubato is a concerto of passion that moves between past and present, Western and Eastern culture, exploring the meaning of identity and love. Continuing the saga of the Von Stronheim family of Victoria, BC, this second novel of a trilogy by Linda Rogers, centres on Precious Von Stronheim, daughter of the main character of the previous volume The Empress Letters. Like an intricate oriental brocade, Tempo Rubato weaves strands of culture and personal history into a fascinating celebration of music, identity and love. Caught in the echoes of past loss and the plaintive melodies of the East, Precious at last comes to terms with the present moment and the enduring nature of love.