Peony in Love: A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Chinese family becomes enmeshed in a dramatic story, uncovers past secrets and tragedies, and learns that love can transcend death in this “engrossing [and] thought-provoking meditation on what it means to be human” (People, Critic’s Choice) from the acclaimed author of Snow Flower and The Secret Fan.

“Electrifying . . . a fascinating and often surprising story of women helping women, women hurting women, and women misunderstanding each other.”—The Miami Herald

In seventeenth-century China, in an elaborate villa on the shores of Hangzhou’s West Lake, Peony lives a sheltered life. One night, during a theatrical performance in her family’s garden, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately overcome with emotion. So begins Peony’s unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow, the living world and the afterworld. Eventually expelled from all she’s known, Peony is thrust into a realm where hungry ghosts wander the earth, written words have the power to hurt and kill, and dreams are as vivid as waking life.

Peony in Love, based on actual historical events, evokes vividly another time and place and will make you ache in heart and mind for young Peony and all the women of the world who want to be heard.