Nicole Mones

Struggling to get back on her feet in the wake of her husband's premature death and stunned by a paternity suit against her husband's estate, food writer Maggie McElroy plans a trip to China to investigate the claim and to profile rising chef Sam Liang, who introduces her to the Chinese concept of food, while drawing her into his extended family and helping her come to terms with her life. 30,000 first printing.

The Last Chinese Chef

Touring Shanghai in 1936 as part of a black jazz orchestra, Thomas Greene meets Song Yuhua, translator for one of Japan's biggest crime bosses, and together through friendship and love they weather the Japanese invasion together. 40,000 first printing.

Night in Shanghai

Alice Mennegen, an American translator in Beijing, joins professor Lin Shiyang on an archaeological expedition that becomes a breathtaking erotic journey across some of the most far-flung regions of China and into her past. A first novel. Reprint. Tour.

Lost in Translation

Flying to Beijing to appraise some rare imperial porcelain, art historian Lia Frank must ensure that the collection is authentic as she finds herself being drawn into the perilous underworld of art forgeries, smuggling, and unexpected passion, in a tale of romantic suspense set in modern China. Reprint.

A Cup of Light

This novel of an American musician caught up in the dangers of 1930s China is “historical fiction at its best” (Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered). In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African American expats. After being flat broke in segregated Baltimore, he is now living in a mansion with servants of his own, the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure, and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war. Song Yuhua is refined and educated, and has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai’s most powerful crime boss in payment for her father’s gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage—and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party. Only when Shanghai is shattered by the Japanese invasion do Song and Thomas find their way to each other. Though their union is forbidden, neither can back down from it in the turbulent years of occupation and resistance that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and world war, they are borne on an irresistible riff of melody and improvisation to Night in Shanghai’s final, impossible choice. This stunningly researched novel that “keeps the suspense mounting until the end” not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese jazz age, but also weaves in a startling true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West (Kirkus Reviews).

A Novel

L'ultimo chef cinese

From the author of THE LAST CHINESE CHEF and LOST IN TRANSLATION comes a gripping story of deception and love, set against the world of Chinese porcelain smuggling. In this world, beauty always has a price and nothing can be judged too finely. Lia Frank, an appraiser of fine Chinese porcelain, is sent from New York to Beijing to catalogue and appraise a rare collection of twenty pieces. At the private house she has been given to work in, however, she finds eight hundred pieces, many originating from the imperial porcelain collection.As Lia examines her treasure, she finds herself drawn into the underworld of Chinese art. From the slightly shady Hollywood Road antique district in Hong Kong, to the professional underworld smugglers who move art illegally out of the mainland; from the rich Western art lovers who don't ask questions, to the Chinese museum officials who want to bring back every piece taken out by Western marauders, each player in the game carries his own secret. It's Lia's job to find the truth. As she sorts out the puzzle and uncovers the true history of the collection, she also yearns to have a relationship with more than an inanimate work of art. As the story unfolds, she gets her chance.

Emotionally charged and erotic, this widely translated novel from the bestselling author of THE LAST CHINESE CHEF and A CUP OF LIGHT has been universally praised for its authoritative portrayal of a China rarely captured in contemporary fiction. At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. An American by birth, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever. then Alice takes a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. And begins an intoxicating journey of the heart - one that draws her into a perilous search for archaeological treasure, plunges her into the vast, uncharted terrain of northwest China, and brings a man named Lin Shiyang into her life. As their expedition twists perilously through the violent history of China, as Alice and Lin slowly seek shelter in each other, an extraordinary series of events begins to unfold in this haunting, utterly unforgettable novel. LOST IN TRANSLATION is a rich exploration of love in all its forms - human, sexual, divine, between a nation and its history, a man and his past, a father and his daughter.

Ann Patchett

Maggie O'Farrell

Jenna Blum

Molly Gloss

Elizabeth Benedict

Six novels in one volume by today’s most outstanding female writers—includes The Magician’s Assistant, Those Who Save Us, and more. From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto, to the multiple award-winning author of This Must Be the Place, this collection gathers a half-dozen top-notch literary talents in a treasure trove for fiction lovers. Included: Almost by Elizabeth Benedict chronicles the attempt of writer Sophy Chase to come to terms with the death of her almost ex-husband—who may have committed suicide on the New England resort island where she left him just months before. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum follows Trudy, a professor of German history, as she investigates her mother’s past in WWII Germany, combining a passionate, doomed love story; a vivid evocation of life during the war; and a poignant mother/daughter drama. The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss is a heartwarming story of a young woman with the rare talent of “gentling” wild horses, and the unexpected and profound connections between people and animals. The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones takes readers inside the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China, through the story of an American food writer in Beijing who discovers that her late husband may have been leading a double life. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell is a gothic, intricate tale of family secrets, lost lives, and the freedom brought by truth. The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett tells the story of the death of a secretive magician—and how it sets in motion his partner’s journey of self-discovery.

Nicole Mones

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