Showing titles in Asian American & Pacific Islander

Cat Li cares about two things: video games and swoony romances. The former has meant there’s not been much of the latter in her (real) life, but when she lands her dream job writing the love storylines for Compass Hollow—the next big thing in games—she knows it’s all been worth it. Then she meets her boss: the infamous Andi Zhang, who’s not only an arrogant hater of happily-ever-afters determined to keep Cat from doing her job but also impossibly, annoyingly hot.

Ken Hideyoshi is the new guy in Halawa Correctional Institute. He’s tough looking, a hard case. His cellmate is Cal—the mute tattoo artist of the prison who murdered his own wife. Ken, already inked with a gang symbol and a Japanese emblem, eventually asks Cal to create an elaborate tattoo on his back, in kanji script, of Musashi’s Book of the Void.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of young Japanese brides, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers....

Raised by her mother and grandmother and tutored in the healing wonders of spices, Tulsi Gupta is expected to carry on the ancestral tradition from her family’s Salem spice shop. Restless and reluctant, Tulsi yearns to follow her own path—destiny has other plans. When Tulsi finds a letter written by her grandmother, addressed and never sent, that speaks of a long-ago betrayal, she decides to unravel the mystery as a distraction. But Tulsi stumbles into much more than she bargained for.

Jia Song has always been destined for greatness. As the daughter of Korean bodega owners, she promised herself that she would have every Fifth Avenue luxury when she grew up, and it is all finally within reach. She has just made junior partner at her prestigious Manhattan law firm, she can count on her two best friends to have her back, and she is about to score the ultraluxe gold-on-gold Birkin bag of her dreams. So when her boss asks her to sit in on the hush-hush family implosion of a high-level client, she accepts without hesitation.

Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.

When recently widowed Maggie McElroy is called to China to settle a claim against her late husbands estate, she is blindsided by the discovery that he may have led a double life. Since work is all that will keep her sane, her magazine editor assigns her to profile Sam, a half-Chinese American who is the last in a line of gifted chefs tracing back to the imperial palace. As she watches Sam gear up for Chinas Olympic culinary competition by planning the banquet of a lifetime, she begins to see past the cuisines artistry to glimpse its coherent expression of Chinese civilization.

Lana Lee’s plate is already plenty full. Running her family’s Chinese restaurant in Cleveland’s Asia Village is challenging on the best of days. But just when Lana thinks she might be able to catch her breath before the weekend―which she’s eager to spend with her equally overworked boyfriend, Detective Adam Trudeau―Lana witnesses a car accident in the parking lot. And now she has no choice but to get involved.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing. In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment.

A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.

These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.

Business has never been better for Nura Khan, a third-generation matchmaker in Atlanta. Her exclusive clientele benefits from her impeccable track record. And while a single thirty-one-year-old matchmaker would normally raise some perfectly threaded eyebrows in the community, Nura’s childhood best friend, Azar, is willing to double as her pretend fiancé at her clients’ weddings—even though Nura’s feelings for him might not be so pretend.

February 28, 1947: Trapped inside the family home amid an uprising that has rocked Taipei, Dr. Tsai delivers his youngest daughter, the unnamed narrator of Green Island, just after midnight as the city is plunged into martial law. In the following weeks, as the Chinese Nationalists act to crush the opposition, Dr. Tsai becomes one of the many thousands of people dragged away from their families and thrown into prison.

Ingrid Yung's life is full of firsts. A first-generation Chinese American, the first lawyer in her family, she's about to collect the holy grail of "firsts" and become the first minority woman to make partner at the venerable old law firm Parsons Valentine & Hunt. Ingrid has perfected the art of "passing" and seamlessly blends into the old-boy corporate culture. She gamely banters in the corporate cafeteria, plays in the firm softball league, and earnestly racks up her billable hours.

It was supposed to be a fancy, intimate dinner party by the pool. Instead, Lana Lee’s first-ever catering event turns into full-course madness when a domestic worker is found dead. Is the party’s host Donna Feng, the sweet-and-sour owner of the Asia Village shopping plaza where Ho-Lee is situated, somehow to blame? That’s what Lana―whose plate is already plenty full with running the restaurant, pleasing her often-disapproving mother, and fretting over her occasionally serious boyfriend Detective Adam Trudeau―must find out.

For Jack Cho, a fortysomething gay man, being able to marry someone he loves is so unfamiliar it’s terrifying. Then a wedding invitation from a college friend brings about a collision with those fears--and his own secret history. Jack and his new boyfriend, Caleb, are attending the wedding of Jack’s estranged straight friend Scott. No sooner do the guests start to mingle than questions arise

In a small pocket of London, between the houses of No.77 and No.79 Eastbourne Road, lies a neglected community garden. It was a beautiful thing once, a little oasis in a bustling city for neighbors by day and the local foxes at twilight. Now it’s overgrown and neglected, an empty patch of greenery lost to time.

Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She’s moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door.

When Elizabeth Chen’s ever-hustling realtor mother finally sells the beloved if derelict community center down the block, the new owners don’t look like typical New York City buyers. Brendan Lee and Darcy Wong are good Chinese boys with Hong Kong money. Clean-cut and charismatic, they say they are committed to cleaning up the neighborhood. To Elizabeth, that only means one thing: Darcy is looking to give the center an uptown makeover.

How many lives fit in a lifetime? When Hero De Vera arrives in America - haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents - she's already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn't ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter - the first American-born daughter in the family - can't resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.