First published 2023
Daiyu gets torn from her life in China when kidnappers smuggle her across the Pacific to America. She never wanted to share the fate of the tragic heroine she was named after, but now she must abandon everything she knew. The young woman moves through a calligraphy school, then a San Francisco brothel, and finally a shop in the Idaho mountains. Each place forces her to become someone new just to stay alive. Anti-Chinese violence erupts across the country during the Chinese Exclusion Act era. Daiyu faces a choice between the different versions of herself she has created. She must decide which parts of her past to embrace and which to reject as she fights to control her own story and claim her true identity.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 21st-century, asian-american
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: America, China, Idaho, San Francisco
Period: 21st-century
336 pages · Paperback · Flatiron Books
Content warnings: racism, trafficking, violence