December 9, 2024
In this richly imagined adult debut from YA author Li (True Love and Other Impossible Odds), the death of a Hollywood star brings together two Chinese American families. Nora Deng, 21, had never heard of Vivian Yin until her mother, Elaine Deng, tells her Vivian has died and included their family in her will. The pair drive from San Bernardino to Vivian’s Altadena manor, where Nora meets Vivian’s daughters, Lucille Wang and Renata “Rennie” Yin-Lowell, and granddaughter Madeline Wang, who are shocked to learn Elaine has inherited the house. As the two families tensely navigate this unexpected development, Li shuttles readers to the 1970s. Vivian, then a young actor with two children from a previous marriage, marries actor Richard Lowell and settles into the home that has been in Richard’s family for generations. Vivian delves into the house’s mysterious history, finding that a “strange, dismal beauty” emanates from it and discovering secrets among Richard’s ancestors. The gothic motif extends to a series of tremors that shake the house in the present day, and tensions between the families eventually reach a breaking point. Fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic ought to take note of this beautiful and haunting novel. Agent: Jess Regel, Helm Literary.
