In China, 1923, Mei Ling's parents are desperate to secure a good future for her. This means setting up an arranged marriage for Mei Ling. She will be a paper wife, meaning she has to pretend to be her husbands first wife. Mei Ling sets off on a long journey across the ocean to a country she has never been to.
Along the way Mei Ling takes a young girl, Siew, under her wing and meets her soon to be good friend, June. But when she reaches San Francisco, she discovers that her husband is not who he says is he. Instead of a wealthy merchant, he is just a servant. Mei Ling, who is now pregnant, worries for her future and wonders if they can become a strong loving family, even if the whole relationship is built on false pretenses.
The first part of this book went by pretty fast, but I found the second half kind of lacking. It didn't pull me in the way the first part did, when Mei Ling was going through what she did on the ship to America and on Angel Island. Over all, it was still pretty good, though.
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Paper Wife by Laila Ibrahim - 3 Stars
Sunday, February 7, 2021
A Splendid Ruin by Megan Chance - 4 Stars
May Kimble lives a penniless and lonely life in New York after her mother dies. But shortly after her mother's death, she is summoned to San Francisco to live with an aunt that she didn't know she had. The family is wealthy and May will be taken care of and taken in as one of their own.
But after arriving at her aunt's house, things start to become odd to May. Her aunt stays in a laudanum stupor, the Chinese maid hints that May is in some kind of trouble, and her cousin is often disappearing in the middle of the night.
But on an early morning in April, San Francisco comes tumbling down. May emerges from the smoldering ruins on a mission to find out the truth and claim what is rightfully hers.
Megan Chance is my favorite historical author, so I was excited to run across a newer book of hers. The first 2/3 of this book had me turning pages like crazy, but the ending wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting a shocking twist of some sort, but never got it. But over all it was a really good book.