Four Treasures of the Sky - Jenny Tinghui Zhang

Written by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Read by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Katharine Chin
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: April 5, 2022
Duration: 12:21:28

A propulsive and dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West

Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and forced across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself. Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive.

From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her. As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the country in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been—including the ones she most wants to leave behind—in order to finally claim her own name and story.

”Katharine Chin’s narration expresses the lyricism and emotions of this historical novel, which takes listeners into the late-nineteenth-century world of Daiyu, who is kidnapped from China. She reinvents herself again and again amid the prejudice of the U.S.’s 1882 Exclusion Act. Chin embraces the balance of adventure and sensitivity, as well as the layered persona of Daiyu. Chin also conveys the intelligence, creativity, and strength of the heroine as she makes calligraphy her own, escapes a San Francisco brothel, and falls into the hands of white mobsters in a small Idaho town. In neutral tones, the author delivers an afterword and participates in an interview that recounts her own journey and the truths behind the story.”— AudioFile 2022