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Ballantine Books
August 2018
On Sale: August 14, 2018
304 pages
ISBN: 0399178783
EAN: 9780399178788
Kindle: B077LSVT5K
Hardcover / e-Book
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Trade Size (reprint - August 2019)
Women's Fiction
In a powerful debut novel about motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman makes her way to California and stakes a claim to the American dream.
Holed up with other moms-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory job and fell in love with the owner, Boss Yeung. Now sheโs carrying his baby. Already married with three daughters, heโs overjoyed because the doctors confirmed he will finally have the son he has always wanted. To ensure that his son has every advantage, he has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. U.S. citizenship will open doors for their little prince.
As Scarlett awaits the babyโs arrival, she chokes down bitter medicinal stews and spars with her imperious housemates. The only one who fits in even less is Daisy, a spirited teenager and fellow unwed mother who is being kept apart from her American boyfriend.
Then a new sonogram of Scarlettโs baby reveals the unexpected. Panicked, she escapes by hijacking a vanโonly to discover that she has a stowaway: Daisy, who intends to track down the father of her child. They flee to San Franciscoโs bustling Chinatown, where Scarlett will join countless immigrants desperately trying to seize their piece of the American dream. What Scarlett doesnโt know is that her babyโs father is not far behind her.
A River of Stars is an entertaining, wildly unpredictable adventure, told with empathy and wit by an author the San Francisco Chronicle says โhas a deep understanding of the pressure of submerged emotions and polite, face-saving deceptions.โ Itโs a vivid examination of home and belonging, and a moving portrayal of a woman determined to build her own future.
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