June 30, 2022
Summer is often a time when we find ourselves spending long stretches of time away from home. It may be weekends at a beach or lake house...or, if you are really lucky, the whole summer season. It also may be days at a swim club, or weekends. Or you may be getting together with family. Bring on the “One-Book” Book Club. Think about ONE book that would be fun for the group to read and would make for a great discussion. Give it a vote if multiple suggestions are out there. Plot a date and time to talk, and enjoy the discussion. See this as a great opportunity to talk books with people you normally do not chat about books with. We’d love to hear your thoughts on ideas like this, as well as if you pull together a “One-Book” Book Club.
Editorial Content for Clark and Division
Book
Teaser
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery --- the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death --- brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
Promo
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery --- the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death --- brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
About the Book
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled 2,000 miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train.
Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, CLARK AND DIVISION infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from 30 years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.
Editorial Content for Counterfeit
Book
Teaser
For fans of Hustlers and HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA comes the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise.
Promo
For fans of Hustlers and HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA comes the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise.
About the Book
For fans of Hustlers and HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise --- an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime and friendship from the author of BURY WHAT WE CANNOT TAKE and SOY SAUCE FOR BEGINNERS.
Money can’t buy happiness… but it can buy a decent fake.
Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son and a beautiful home, she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.
Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, 20 years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags, and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business --- someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.
Swift, surprising and sharply comic, COUNTERFEIT is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.
