From a small mountain village in China,
where the minorities live, Li-yan and her family collect tea leaves. The
members of their little enclave live and love by the old and often strict traditions
of the Akha people as they have for many generations. The Akha follow their
spiritual leaders and manage to scrape by with little money and barely enough food.
Li-yan’s mother is the medicine woman
and mid-wife of their village and most often backbone of their community. When
they are not collecting tea leaves Li-yan is one of the lucky few children to
attend a small school hut where Teacher Zhang instills a love of learning and
ultimately changes her future. One day a jeep mysteriously arrives and Mr.
Huang – a successful businessman in search of the highest quality tea - can
only be assisted by Li-yan as she now is the sole villager to speak Mandarin.
And so begins her journey into adulthood, the difficult choices that are made
and sometimes opportunities also missed. The intense mother love travels
between mountain top villages and stretches across vast oceans all the way to
California. Once again, magnificent author Lisa See takes us on a journey to
another world where the reader can see the leaves being plucked one by one and
practically smell the blossoms on the trees. Her steadfast attention to detail
brings the characters alive and you will be thinking of Li-yan and her family
long after the story ends. I am in awe of the way Ms. See manages to bring full
circle the outcome and life lessons so smoothly that I find myself slowing my
reading to digest every beautiful sentence. I highly recommend this
breathtaking novel which will surely capture your imagination and your heart.
And quite possibly have you booking a trip to China (as I hope to) in the near
future.
Yes! So happy to hear you loved this. My reading this year has been terribly meh and this is one of the March releases I'm really looking forward to, so glad to know I won't be disappointed. It sounds wonderful. Thank you!
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