One book I can recommend is Palace Women in the Northern Sung, 960-1126 by Priscilla Ching Chung. Chung explains how palace women were ranked into different bureaus that paralleled the male civil service. She goes into a lot of detail about how these bureaus (in charge of apartments, mail, gardens, etc.) ran the day-to-day affairs of the palace. Her analysis includes looking at the evidence for how women were recruited into palace service, and what their life options were like once they were retired from palace work. She also profiles some of the most famous palace women in the Northern Song Dynasty.