“Within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.”

It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.

Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?

Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

Review:

Rich, poignant, and affecting!

Peach Blossom Spring is an intimate, absorbing, multi-generational story, spanning eight decades, that takes you into the life of Meilin, a young widow who, after fleeing war and communistic oppression in the Hunan Province of China in 1938, escapes to Taiwan with her four-year-old son where she toils and struggles to make a good life until 1960, when Renshu, now grown, heads to graduate school at Northwestern University in America where he stays, marries, and raises a family as an immigrant who never quite feels at home due to ongoing encounters of political unease, awkwardness, racism, and the enduring effects of his childhood trauma.

The prose is expressive and fluid. The characters are layered, vulnerable, and resourceful. And the plot is a moving tale about life, love, familial relationships, heartbreak, loss, desperation, estrangement, courage, hope, regret, and culture.

Overall, Peach Blossom Spring is a compelling, evocative, immersive tale by Fu that I thoroughly enjoyed and which has just the right amount of intrigue, colourful history, and palpable emotion to be more than pleasing to lovers of the historical fiction genre.

This novel is available now.

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