Synopses & Reviews
From the New York Timesbestselling author of Me Before You, a spellbinding love story of two women separated by a century but united in their determination to fight for what they love most
Jojo Moyess bestseller, Me Before You, catapulted her to wide critical acclaim and has struck a chord with readers everywhere. Hopelessly and hopefully romantic” (Chicago Tribune), Moyes returns with another irresistible heartbreaker that asks, Whatever happened to the girl you left behind?”
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouards portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officers dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everythingher family, her reputation, and her lifeto see her husband again.
Almost a century later, Sophies portrait is given to Liv Halston by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. A chance encounter reveals the paintings true worth, and a battle begins for who its legitimate owner isputting Livs belief in what is right to the ultimate test.
Like Sarah Blakes The Postmistress and Tatiana de Rosnays Sarahs Key, The Girl You Left Behind is a breathtaking story of love, loss, and sacrifice told with Moyess signature ability to capture our hearts with every turn of the page.
Review
"Lee has created the sort of interesting, complex characters, especially in Trudy, that drive a rich and intimate look at what happens to people under extraordinary circumstances." Booklist
Review
"Thrust from privilege into imprisonment virtually overnight, Lee's characters are caught up in the intrigue and collusion that were part of wartime survival. Her adept pacing slowly exposes the inevitability of tragedy that engulfs her characters. Highly recommended." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, The Piano Teacher is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Lee proves a worthier instructor than Claire does, and her novel teaches that...passion may prove as destructive as war." Miami Herald
Review
"In her debut novel...former Elle magazine editor Janice Y.K. Lee succeeds impressively..." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Synopsis
In the sweeping tradition of
The English Patient, a gripping tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong.
In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Will is sent to an internment camp, where he and other foreigners struggle daily for survival. Meanwhile, Trudy remains outside, forced to form dangerous alliances with the Japanese — in particular, the malevolent head of the gendarmerie, whose desperate attempts to locate a priceless collection of Chinese art lead to a chain of terrible betrayals.
Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the heady social life of the expatriate community. At one of its elegant cocktail parties, she meets Will, to whom she is instantly attracted — but as their affair intensifies, Claire discovers that Will’s enigmatic persona hides a devastating past. As she begins to understand the true nature of the world she has entered, and long-buried secrets start to emerge, Claire learns that sometimes the price of survival is love.
Synopsis
In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, a gripping tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong.
Synopsis
"A rare and exquisite story...Transports you out of time, out of place, into a world you can feel on your very skin." -Elizabeth Gilbert In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, Janice Y.K. Lee's debut novel is a tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong. In 1942, Englishman Will Truesdale falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong to work as a piano teacher and also begins a fateful affair. As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine, impossible choices emerge-between love and safety, courage and survival, the present, and above all, the past.
Synopsis
From the New York Timesbestselling author of Me Before You, a spellbinding love story of two women separated by a century but united in their determination to fight for what they love most
Jojo Moyess bestseller, Me Before You, catapulted her to wide critical acclaim and has struck a chord with readers everywhere. Hopelessly and hopefully romantic” (Chicago Tribune), Moyes returns with another irresistible heartbreaker that asks, Whatever happened to the girl you left behind?”
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouards portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officers dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everythingher family, her reputation, and her lifeto see her husband again.
Almost a century later, Sophies portrait is given to Liv Halston by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. A chance encounter reveals the paintings true worth, and a battle begins for who its legitimate owner isputting Livs belief in what is right to the ultimate test.
Like Sarah Blakes The Postmistress and Tatiana de Rosnays Sarahs Key, The Girl You Left Behind is a breathtaking story of love, loss, and sacrifice told with Moyess signature ability to capture our hearts with every turn of the page.
Synopsis
Unabridged CDs ? 8 CDs, 10 hours In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, a gripping tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong.
Synopsis
A new novel by the author of
The Last Chinese Chef, a love story between a black musician and a gangster's translator set against Shanghais dazzling jazz age and the looming menace of World War II, and "a rich and thoroughly captivating read." (Gail Tsukiyama, author of
The Samurais Garden)
Synopsis
In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war. Song Yuhua is refined and educated, and has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghais most powerful crime boss in payment for her fathers gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party. Only when Shanghai is shattered by the Japanese invasion do Song and Thomas find their way to each other. Though their union is forbidden, neither can back down from it in the turbulent years of occupation and resistance that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and world war, they are borne on an irresistible riff of melody and improvisation to Night in Shanghais final, impossible choice. In this stunningly researched novel, Nicole Mones not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese jazz age, but also weaves in a startling true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West. View the Trailer: www.nicolemones.com
Synopsis
An epic tale of love, loyalty, and war from the acclaimed author of Monkey Bridge Half a century after it began, the Vietnam War still has a hold on our national psyche. Lan Caos now-classic debut, Monkey Bridge, won her wide renown for connecting . . . the opposite realities of Vietnam and America” (Isabel Allende). In her triumphant new novel, Cao transports readers back to the war, illuminating events central to twentieth-century history through the lives of one Vietnamese American family.
Minh is a former South Vietnamese commander of the airborne brigade who left his homeland with his daughter, Mai. During the war, their lives became entwined with those of two Americans: James, a soldier, and Cliff, a military adviser. Forty years later, Minh and his daughter Mai live in a close-knit Vietnamese immigrant community in suburban Virginia. As Mai discovers a series of devastating truths about what really happened to her family during those years, Minh reflects upon his life and the story of love and betrayal that has remained locked in his heart since the fall of Saigon.
Video
About the Author
Janice Y. K. Lee was born and raised in Hong Kong and went to boarding school in the United States before attending Harvard College. She is a former features editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines in New York. The Piano Teacher is her first book.