The Bonesetter's Daughter: A Novel

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “[An] absorbing tale of the mother-daughter bond” (People) from the renowned author of The Joy Luck Club and The Backyard Bird Chronicles

“No one writes about mothers and daughters with more empathy than Amy Tan.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Ruth Young and her widowed mother have always had a difficult relationship. But when she discovers writings that vividly describe her mother’s tumultuous life growing up in China, Ruth discovers a side of LuLing that she never knew existed.

Transported to a backwoods village known as Immortal Heart, Ruth learns of secrets passed along by a mute nursemaid, Precious Auntie; of a cave where dragon bones are mined; of the crumbling ravine known as the End of the World; and of the curse that LuLing believes she released through betrayal. Within the calligraphied pages awaits the truth about a mother’s heart, secrets she cannot tell her daughter, yet hopes she will never forget. . . .

Conjuring the pain of broken dreams and the power of myths, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, and its most profound hopes.