The Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club PickINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“A sumptuous garden maze of a novel that immerses readers in a complex, vanished world.” —Kirkus (starred review)An utterly transporting novel set in 1930s colonial Malaysia, perfect for fans of Isabel Allende and Min Jin LeeQuick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger pulls us into a world of servants and masters, age-old superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzling, propulsive novel is the intimate coming-of-age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible."A work of incredible beauty... Astoundingly captivating and striking... A transcendent story of courage and connection." —Booklist (starred review) Read more

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Wall Street Journal Bestseller National Jewish Book Awards Finalist Goodreads Choice Awards Best Historical Fiction Nominee "Weina Dai Randel's poignant, sweeping love story paints a vibrant portrait of a little-known slice of World War II history. Not to be missed!" ―Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code and The Huntress"A powerful story of the relationship between a Shanghai heiress and a Jewish refugee...one readers will never forget." ―Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star"A must-read for historical fiction lovers. Filled with page-turning suspense and a poignant and unforgettable love story, Weina Dai Randel wholly immerses the reader in this richly detailed and powerfully drawn story." ―Chanel Cleeton, New York Times and USA Today bestselling authorIn Japanese-occupied Shanghai, two people from different cultures are drawn together by fate and the freedom of music...1940. Aiyi Shao is a young heiress and the owner of a formerly popular and glamorous Shanghai nightclub. Ernest Reismann is a penniless Jewish refugee driven out of Germany, an outsider searching for shelter in a city wary of strangers. He loses nearly all hope until he crosses paths with Aiyi. When she hires Ernest to play piano at her club, her defiance of custom causes a sensation. His instant fame makes Aiyi's club once again the hottest spot in Shanghai. Soon they realize they share more than a passion for jazz—but their differences seem insurmountable, and Aiyi is engaged to another man.As the war escalates, Aiyi and Ernest find themselves torn apart, and their choices between love and survival grow more desperate. In the face of overwhelming odds, a chain of events is set in motion that will change both their lives forever.From the electrifying jazz clubs to the impoverished streets of a city under siege, The Last Rose of Shanghai is a timeless, sweeping story of love and redemption. Read more

Pearl S. Buck’s timeless masterpiece, the Pulitzer Prize–winning story of a farmer’s journey through China in the 1920sThe Good Earth is Buck’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple’s fortunes improve over the years: They are blessed with sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in the House of Wang—the very house in which O-lan used to work. But success brings with it a new set of problems. Wang soon finds himself the target of jealousy, and as good harvests come and go, so does the social order. Will Wang’s family cherish the estate after he’s gone? And can his material success, the bedrock of his life, guarantee anything about his soul? Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Award, The Good Earth was an Oprah’s Book Club choice in 2004. A readers’ favorite for generations, this powerful and beautifully written fable resonates with universal themes of hope and family unity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate. Read more

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .Manchuria, 1908.In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals andspirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true. Read more

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“A gorgeous, poetic journey threaded with . . . magic about a group from a Chinese university who take to the road to escape the Japanese invasion of 1937” —Kate Quinn, New York Times–bestselling author of The Alice Network and The HuntressChina, 1937: When Japanese fall on the city of Nanking, Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than a hundred students, faculty, and staff must walk a thousand miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.Within the convoy, Lian finds friendship and romance with handsome Liu Shaoming. But after one classmate is murdered and another arrested, Lian must escape before a family secret puts her in danger. Accompanied by Shao and his maidservant Sparrow, Lian makes her way to Shanghai, hoping to reunite with her mother.On the journey, Lian learns of the connection between her two companions and a tale from the Library of Legends, The Willow Star and the Prince. Learning Shao and Sparrow’s true identities compels Lian to confront her feelings for Shao. But there are broader consequences too, for as the ancient books travel across China, they awaken immortals and guardian spirits to embark on an exodus of their own, one that changes the country’s fate forever.“Janie Chang has beautifully melded history and the spirit world to create an adventurous love story.” —Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author of Shanghai Girls Read more

The second installment in Pearl S. Buck’s acclaimed Good Earth trilogy: the powerful story of three brothers whose greed will bring their family to the brink of ruinSons begins where The Good Earth ended: Revolution is sweeping through China. Wang Lung is on his deathbed in the house of his fathers, and his three sons stand ready to inherit his hard-won estate. One son has taken the family’s wealth for granted and become a landlord; another is a thriving merchant and moneylender; the youngest, an ambitious general, is destined to be a leader in the country. Through all his life’s changes, Wang did not anticipate that each son would hunger to sell his beloved land for maximum profit. At once a tribute to early Chinese fiction, a saga of family dissension, and a depiction of the clashes between old and new, Sons is a vivid and compelling masterwork of fiction.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate. Read more

New York Times Bestseller: This epic novel of the conquest of the Ming dynasty “does for 17th-century China what James Clavell’s Shogun did for 16th-century Japan” (The Christian Science Monitor). Francis Arrowsmith is a man without a country, a soldier-of-fortune in search of a war. An English orphan raised in France by exiled Jesuits, he hopes to make a quick pile out of his rare skills in building and operating artillery. Little does he know that when he joins a Portuguese expedition to aid the decadent and corrupt Ming dynasty in its fight against the Manchu invaders, he is embarking on a journey that will merge his destiny with the fate of China itself.   From the opulent courts of the emperors to bloody battlefields, author Robert Elegant employs his deep knowledge and love of China to create a richly detailed world of dangers and delights, where the quest for power and pleasure drives men and women to extremes of both loyalty and betrayal.  Manchu is the compellingly vivid story of an empire in its last agonies and the people caught up in its fateful drama by the Edgar Award–winning author of Mandarin and Dynasty.   Read more

Based on the story of Empress Wu Zetian of ChinaWinner of RWA RITA® Award 2017Goodreads Choice Awards "Best Historical Fiction" semi-finalist 2016"RT Book Reviewers Choice "Best First Historical" nominee Recommended by Texas Library Association's 2017 Lariat Reading ListOne of the Biggest Historical Fiction books of 2016 by Bookbub"I absolutely loved The Moon in the Palace... A rare and beautiful treasure." -- Elizabeth Chadwick, NYT bestselling author There is no easy path for a woman aspiring to powerA concubine at the palace learns quickly that there are many ways to capture the Emperor's attention. Many paint their faces white and style their hair attractively, hoping to lure in the One Above All with their beauty. Some present him with fantastic gifts, such as jade pendants and scrolls of calligraphy, while others rely on their knowledge of seduction to draw his interest. Young Mei knows nothing of these womanly arts, yet she will give the Emperor a gift he can never forget.Mei's intelligence and curiosity, the same traits that make her an outcast among the other concubines, impress the Emperor. But just as she is in a position to seduce the most powerful man in China, divided loyalties split the palace in two, culminating in a perilous battle that Mei can only hope to survive.In the breakthrough first volume in the Empress of Bright Moon duology, Weina Dai Randel paints a vibrant portrait of ancient China--where love, ambition, and loyalty can spell life or death--and the woman who came to rule it all. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A gifted writer . . . explores the bonds of sisterhood while powerfully evoking the often nightmarish American immigrant experience.”—USA TodayBONUS: This edition contains a Shanghai Girls discussion guide and an excerpt from Lisa See's Dreams of Joy.In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules. At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are: Shanghai girls.Praise for Shanghai Girls“A buoyant and lustrous paean to the bonds of sisterhood.”–Booklist“A rich work . . . as compulsively readable as it is an enlightening journey.”—Denver Post Read more

“Admirers of Empress Orchid will be interested in this sequel. Others may find the introduction to relatively modern Chinese history a revelation” (Rocky Mountain News).   During the tumultuous end of the nineteenth century in China, the only constant was the power wielded by one person: the resilient, ever-resourceful Tzu Hsi, Lady Yehonala—or Empress Orchid—as readers came to know her in Anchee Min’s critically acclaimed novel covering the first part of her life.   In The Last Empress, Orchid moves from the intimacy of the concubine quarters into the spotlight of the world stage. Devastating personal losses take their toll, leaving her yearning to step aside, but only she—allied with the progressives, but loyal to the conservative Manchu clan of her dynasty—can hold the nation’s rival factions together.   Anchee Min offers a powerful revisionist portrait based on extensive research of one of the most important figures in Chinese history. Viciously maligned by the western press of the time as the “Dragon Lady,” a manipulative, blood-thirsty woman who held onto power at all costs, the woman Min gives us is a compelling, very human leader who assumed power reluctantly, and who sacrificed all she had to protect those she loved and an empire that was doomed to die.   “The vision of an empress who very nearly had it all: vulnerability and strength, motherhood and power, earthiness and dignity, compassion and ambition.” —The Washington Post   “Invokes the intrigue and opulence of nineteenth-century China while telling the story of its improbably dominant ruler.” —Los Angeles Times Read more

A writer flees Beijing’s Communist authorities and embarks on a mythical quest through rural China in a “playful monster of a book” by a Nobel Prize winner (The New York Times Book Review).In 1983 Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and prepared for imminent death. But six weeks later, a second examination revealed the cancer was gone, and he was thrown back into the world of the living. Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is Soul Mountain.A bold, lyrical, prodigious novel, Soul Mountain probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor. Interwoven with a myriad of stories and countless memorable characters—from venerable Daoist masters and Buddhist nuns to mythical Wild Men, deadly Qichun snakes, and farting buses—is the narrator's poignant inner journey and search for freedom.“A true work of great literature.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review“Spellbinding . . . Gao Xingjian's masterpiece expresses sorrow and anger, wonder and confusion, humor and metaphysics, lust and tenderness, and a profound longing for meaning and freedom.” —Booklist“If a successful novelist is one who tells us something new about the human spirit and a successful novel transports us to another world, then Gao and Soul Mountain have succeeded spectacularly.” —The Washington Post Book World Read more

“A fable, set in the 17th century, filled with vivid evocations of another time [and] wonderfully peculiar characters.” —Kirkus Reviews   To escape Puritan England, naturalist Edward Popple signs on to be a ship’s doctor on a journey across the Indian Ocean, and his daughter, Rosamund, stows away to accompany him. But a wreck leaves them stranded on an island off the coast of Africa.   Amid the lush vegetation, the birds and the sea turtles, father and daughter set about exploring, Edward passionately studying the island’s horticulture and Rosamund wandering about to discover its mysteries. Then a Chinese ship, with the last heir to the Ming dynasty among its passengers, arrives—and changes everything.   “The prose is ripe, laden with a sense of the forbidden, and with doom.” —Publishers Weekly   “A luminous historical novel.” —Booklist Online Read more

A Chinese dissident is torn between love and country in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Good Earth.  When Wu I-wan starts taking an interest in revolution, trouble follows: Winding up in prison, he becomes friends with fellow dissident En-lan. Later, his name is put on a death list and he’s shipped off to Japan. Thankfully, his father, a wealthy Shanghai banker, has made arrangements for his exile, putting him in touch with a business associate named Mr. Muraki. Absorbed in his new life, I-wan falls in love with Mr. Muraki’s daughter, and must prove he is worthy of her hand. As news spreads of what the Japanese army is doing back in China, I-wan realizes he must go back and fight for the country that banished him.The Patriot is an engrossing story of revolution, love, and reluctantly divided loyalties by the Nobel Prize–winning author renowned for her novels set in Asia and informed by the sweep of history, including the New York Times bestsellers The Living Reed and The Hidden Flower.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate. Read more

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From the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth: the New York Times–bestselling biography of Tzu Hsi, the concubine who became China’s last empress.  In Imperial Woman, Pearl S. Buck brings to life the amazing story of Tzu Hsi, who rose from concubine status to become the working head of the Qing Dynasty. Born from a humble background, Tzu Hsi falls in love with her cousin Jung Lu, a handsome guard—but while still a teenager she is selected, along with her sister and hundreds of other girls, for relocation to the Forbidden City. Already set apart on account of her beauty, she’s determined to be the emperor’s favorite, and devotes all of her talent and cunning to the task. When the emperor dies, she finds herself in a role of supreme power, one she’ll command for nearly fifty years. Much has been written about Tzu Hsi, but no other novel recreates her life—the extraordinary personality, together with the world of court intrigue and the period of national turmoil with which she dealt—as well as Imperial Woman. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate. Read more

From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother.That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . . In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate near Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in.Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the haunted courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes.Always hopeful of finding her long-lost mother, Jialing grows into womanhood during the tumultuous early years of the Chinese republic, guided by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past. But she finds herself drawn into a murder at the periphery of political intrigue, a relationship that jeopardizes her friendship with Anjuin and a forbidden affair that brings danger to the man she loves. Read more

Her father traded away her youth.Sea bandits stole her freedom.She has one way to get them back:Become the most powerful pirate in the world.South China coast, 1801. Sold as a child to a floating brothel, 26-year-old Yang has finally bought her freedom, only to be kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader.Dragged through stormy seas and lawless bandit havens, Yang must stay scrappy to survive. She embeds herself in the dark business of piracy, carving out her role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders and Cheung Po Tsai, her husband's flamboyant male concubine.As she is caught between bitter rivals fighting for mastery over the pirates—and for her heart—Yang faces a choice between two things she never dreamed might be hers: power or love.Based on a true story that has never been fully told until now, The Flower Boat Girl is the tale of a woman who, against all odds, shaped history on her own terms. Read more

Giles Jackson, the orphan alone in the world, continues his autobiography as viewed from his old age and a selective memory. This second instalment details and comments upon his experience in the opium trade between India and Canton - his highly profitable dealings in Foreign Mud and his involvement with the Triads, country merchants and John Company. He explains how he came to leave China and then was forced into the service of His Britannic Majesty’s government in Gibraltar and Morocco. He also casts light onto the circumstances leading to his long and generally happy marriage. It may be noted that British firms were engaged in the opium trade from India into China until 1939, though publicising their activities less as time went by. Opium - and all its derivatives - was unlawful in China from 1780 but did not become a prohibited and controlled substance in the UK until the early 1950s. (Of interest to the historian is that heroin abuse in the UK only increased after the substance was made unlawful. It is estimated that only 300 addicts were known in Britain in 1953.) Read more