by Kirstin Chen
First published 2014
Gretchen Lin returns to Singapore at thirty, fleeing her crumbling marriage in San Francisco. She walks back into the chaos she spent years avoiding: her mother's alcoholism and her father's artisanal soy sauce empire. Her father pressures her to stay permanently and join the family business. Her mother demands the opposite. Gretchen starts a romance with a client's quiet son while wrestling with what she owes her family versus what she wants for herself. An old American friend arrives and gets tangled up in drama surrounding Gretchen's cousin, the male heir to Lin's Soy Sauce company. The family business faces mounting challenges as they try to expand globally. Gretchen must choose between returning to her graduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory or sacrificing her dreams to save the family legacy. Her decision will determine whether she reclaims her American life or commits to Singapore forever. The story explores the weight of family duty against personal ambition through the lens of traditional soy sauce brewing.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-duty, personal-ambition
Setting: San Francisco, Singapore
Period: 21st-century
250 pages · Hardcover · New Harvest