New Books by Asian and Asian American Authors

Fans of Bridgerton will love this story of eighteen-year-old Lady Ela Dalvi who is seeking revenge against her backstabbing former best friend, Poppy. She devises an audacious plan to get even, disguising herself as a mysterious heiress and infiltrating London’s elite. But Ela finds her plans slightly derailed once she catches the eye of a familiar, handsome marquess. In this complicated game of real-life chess, Ela must choose her next move: Finally bring down the queen or capture the king’s heart?

A former journalist turned stay-at-home mother ventures into the dark underbelly of Seoul, South Korea, to find her missing husband after the massive skyscraper where he works collapses. To protect her children, she sets out to find answers in this gripping, page-turning exploration of the lengths one woman will go to unveil hard truths.

A spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century: a hero’s quest, a love story, the story of a young artist coming of age, and an exuberant heist adventure that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years. A wildly inventive, irresistible feat of storytelling involving an elusive mechanical tiger.

We are all born with an inner spark of intuition — Buddhism calls it seeing Dhamma. Taoism calls it finding the way. But most of us in the Western world are socialized to prioritize external markers of success. Money, status, high powered careers — the pressure to perform superficially drowns out the inner voice. As a result, we barely know who we are and what we’re truly capable of. Drawing from ancient sources of wisdom including Zen Buddhism, the Tao, Reiki healing, astrology, and Vipassana meditation, The Karma of Success shows you how to slow down and look inward to find the meaning and success you are meant to have.

When Elodie agrees to be marry Prince Henry, of the wealthy kingdom of Aurea, it’s because the arrangement offers her family enough money to save the famine-stricken realm she grew up in. But when she arrives in Aurea, she begins to understand that the kingdom’s wealth is ill-begotten; each harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices its princesses to a hungry dragon. And Elodie is the next sacrifice. Forced to fight for her life, this damsel must use her wits to defeat a dragon, uncover Aurea’s past, and save not only herself but the future of her new kingdom as well.

In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the “oh my god” moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it—as well as against each other.

The story begins with a prophecy: A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, a cruel immortal god-king, and save the kingdom. That prophecy anoints a hero, Jian, raised since birth in luxury and splendor, and celebrated before he has won a single battle. But that’s when the story hits its first twist: The prophecy is wrong. What follows is a story more wondrous than any prophecy could foresee, and with many unexpected heroes, including Jian himself, who has to find a way to become what he no longer believes he can be—a hero after all.

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold. Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family — loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

Thanks to a tiny transgression after school one day, Melody is shocked to discover that her parents have decided to move her and her mom out of New York City to join her father in Seoul—immediately! Barely having had the chance to say goodbye to her best friend before she’s on a plane, Melody is resentful and homesick. But she soon finds herself settling into their super-luxe villa, meeting cool friends at school, and discovering the alluring aspects of living in Korea—trendsetting fashion, delectable food, her dad’s black card, and a cute boy to explore the city with. Life in Seoul is amazing, until cracks begin to form on its glittering surface…

Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums; about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.

Charlotte Holmes’s life is in peril when her brilliant deductive skills are put to the test in her most dangerous investigation yet, locked aboard a ship at sea. A brutal murder takes place on the ship in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay and Charlotte must avoid getting embroiled in the investigation to protect those closest to her.

Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company’s sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he’s nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech startup’s user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret — and wondering whether her death really was an accident. When Lucas hacks into Margo’s computer looking for answers, he is drawn into her private online life and realizes just how little he knew about his best friend.

From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself — a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America.

In this electrifyingly fierce and funny social satire — inspired by the iconic 1970s film Taxi Driver — a ride share driver is barely holding it together on the hunt for love, dignity, and financial security … until she decides she’s done waiting.

In this Good Morning America Book Club pick, we meet a group of mothers living in a small Irish village. Ciara Dunphy has a seemingly perfect life—a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home. Mishti Guha, discontented with her arranged marriage, is raising her daughter in a place where no one looks like them. Lauren Doyle is the earth mother, content to let her kids run wild, but mocked by the other mothers. When Ciara is found murdered in her own pristine home, the house of cards she’d worked so hard to build comes crumbling down. Everyone seems to have something to gain from Ciara’s death, so if they don’t want the blame, it may be the perfect time to air their enemies’ dirty laundry.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine comes a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool. This searing, intimate story of mothers and daughters—and the sorrows of implacable loss—is the most commanding and unforgettable work yet from a modern master.

The heartfelt memoir of a trans pageant queen from the Philippines who went back into the closet to model in New York City. But as her star rose, her sense of self eroded. She craved acceptance as her authentic self yet had to remain vigilant in order to protect her dream career. Finally, Geena realized that living her truth was the only way to step into her full power. A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.

How do we understand ourselves when the story about who we are supposed to be is stronger than our sense of self? What do we stand to gain—and lose—by taking control of our narrative? These questions propel Prachi Gupta’s heartfelt memoir and can feel particularly fraught for immigrants and their children who live under immense pressure to belong in America.

Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost. A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identity — and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.

From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir of friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and the extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Sathnam Sanghera provides an illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of the British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism. From the foundations of social safety nets to the realities of racism; and from the distrust of public intellectuals to the exceptionalism that permeates immigration debates and the Brexit campaign—empire—whether British or otherwise—informs nearly everything we do.

A sweeping narrative history of the Chinese Exclusion Act — the first federal law to restrict immigration by race and nationality, barring Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades — through an intimate portrayal of Ava Chin’s family’s epic journey to lay down roots in America.

Kathleen Cheng has blown up her life. She’s gone through a breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she’s back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what’s next. To her surprise, her mother isn’t the same person Kathleen remembers. No longer depressed or desperate to return to China, the new Marissa Cheng is sporty, perky, and has been transformed by love. Grasping for direction, Kathleen takes a job at a start-up that specializes in an unconventional form of therapy based on touch. While she negotiates new ideas about intimacy and connection, an unforeseen attachment to someone at work pushes her to rethink her relationships—especially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?

Isha Patel doesn’t have a “prestigious” degree or a “real” career, and her parents never fail to remind her. But that’s okay because she commiserates with her cousin, best friend, and fellow outcast, Rohan. When Isha has a breakthrough getting her script in front of producers, it doesn’t go according to plan. Instead of letting her dreams fall through the cracks, Rohan convinces her to snag a pitch session with an Austinite high-profile celeb: the one and only Matthew McConaughey, who also happened to be her professor at the University of Texas years ago. Chasing Matthew McConaughey isn’t easy. When the search for the esteemed actor turns into a night of hijinks and unexpected—albeit fun—chaos, Isha’s dreams seem farther than ever, but she soon realizes who she really needs to face and that her future may just be alright, alright, alright.

A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong’s protégée and lover—and a heroine of the Cultural Revolution. Forbidden City is an epic yet intimate portrayal of one of the world’s most powerful and least understood leaders during this extraordinarily turbulent period in modern Chinese history.

A dazzling and heartfelt novel about two sisters caught in their parents’ ambition, the accident that brings it all crashing down, and the journey that follows. At turns devastating and funny, warm and wise, sexy and transportive, each sister’s journey confronts the meaning of freedom and travel, youth and innocence, and what it looks like to belong, grieve, and love on one’s own terms.

An Indian American family is turned upside down when the parents split up thirty-six years into their arranged marriage in this witty, big-hearted debut. Over the course of three weeks in August, the whole family will uncover one another’s secrets, confront the limits of love and loyalty, and explore life’s second chances. Charming, funny, and moving, Late Bloomers introduces a delightful new voice in fiction with the story of four individuals trying to understand how to be happy in their own lives — and as a family.

In this epic fantasy, two warriors, Jun and Keema, shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of the Moon Throne — a royal family comprised of a despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors. Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga.