Anna, the narrator of this riveting novel, lives in a storybook world: exotic pre-World War II Shanghai, with handsome young parents, wealth, and comfort. Her father, the son of missionaries, leads a charmed and secretive life, though his greatest joy is sharing his beloved city with his only daughter. Yet when Anna and her mother flee Japanese-occupied Shanghai to return to California, he stays behind, believing his connections and a little bit of luck will keep him safe.
Through Anna's memories and her father's journals we learn of his fall from charismatic millionaire to...
Anna, the narrator of this riveting novel, lives in a storybook world: exotic pre-World War II Shanghai, with handsome young parents, wealth, and comf...
"What ardent, dazzling souls emerge from these American missionaries in China . . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind." --Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist's Daughter
Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old...
"What ardent, dazzling souls emerge from these American missionaries in China . . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence ...
Anna Schoene's father, Joseph, had been a millionaire in 1930s Shanghai. The Japanese invasion had separated him from his family. Anna grows up in Los Angeles and over the years begins to learn the real story of her father.
Anna Schoene's father, Joseph, had been a millionaire in 1930s Shanghai. The Japanese invasion had separated him from his family. Anna grows up in Los...
