This is a Shakespearean love story of old family rivalries that threaten a pair of ill-fated lovers who defy generations of animosity. It is set in the tropical paradise of Hawaii, the island temptress that lures the lovers back, and becomes part of this tale of love lost and rediscovered. It is a combination of "Romeo and Juliet" and Abie's Irish Rose with an Asian-Western twist. When Strange Gods Call takes place in the 1970s, a decade after Hawaii has reached statehood, a time of transition, when, among the older generation, the Confucian ethics of family, honor and scholarship are challenged by the American values of individuality and assertiveness. The central characters in this forbidden love story are Miki Ai'Lee, the great-granddaughter of the Chinese advisor to the Hawaiian monarchy, and Alex Demming, whose family have lived and grown wealthy over the generations as island ranchers. Their childhood romance ends as Miki flies off to become a professor of art in San Francisco, and Alex leaves for Cambodia where he stalks high stakes international art thieves. Years later, back in Hawaii, their paths cross at a time when both are faced with difficult decisions, strong parental expectations at odds with their own desires, as well as the clash of cultures. For Miki, this means Chinese traditions, in which there is enormous pressure for a young woman of thirty to follow in the footsteps of two thousand years of the history of her people. Poignant, lyrical, heart-rending and heart-warming, When Strange Gods Call is alive with the spirits of a land lush full of ghost stories and magic, a land powerful enough to reach across the seas and call its children home with the voice of its gods, the "Night Whispers."

When Strange Gods Call

Literature & Fiction

Chun, Pam

United States

Sourcebooks Inc Landmark

When renowned art history professor Miki Ai’Lee returns home to Hawaii after 12 years, she runs into her first love, Alex, who bears scars he is unwilling to explain. He tracks art and temple thieves in the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia. She thrives in the high-society glamour of art collectors. Now her grandmother is ready to share their family’s darkest secret, if only Miki will listen. When the old world of tradition and the new world of opportunity collide—forcing Miki to choose between the man she loves and the heritage that holds her—she finds that the whispers of tradition are once again at odds with her own desires. Even worse, Miki and Alex’s families have known each other for four generations. Four generations of animosity and death, corrupt politics, and international murder.

Literary

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Robert Fortune detests the Celestial Kingdom and its people the minute he lands in China after the devastating Opium Wars in 1843. Under the guise of a plant hunter for the British Horticultural Society, his secret mission is to steal China's secrets of tea production, a brazen act of industrial espionage that will devastate China's 5,000-year-old civilization. He audaciously ventures into prohibited lands to collect flowers, plants, seeds, and birds. Seduced by the Flowery Land, he pursues exquisitely beautiful Jadelin from the House of Poe, unaware she is trained as a warrior as is everyone in her family who attempts to sabotage his every move and destroy him. The Perfect Tea Thief is a tale of deceit and lies, in a country of tradition crumbling under the powers of industrialization in a clash of Empires. "The Chinese have a saying, "You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been." THE PERFECT TEA THIEF takes the reader back to a source of tension that resonates today between China and the West in a fast-paced and captivating read based on the real life and letters of Robert Fortune." ---Barbara Bundy, PhD. Founding Executive Director Emerita, University of San Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies

The Perfect Tea Thief

History

Asia

In this stunning work, Pam Chun brings a new and powerful voice to the traditions of Chinese-American fiction. The Money Dragon brings to life the saga of L. Ah Leong, the Money Dragon, one of the legends of Hawai`i and the founder of Honolulu's Chinatown. At the turn of the twentieth century, Ah Leong rules over his Hawai`ian home, a legendary man so proficient in the martial arts he has brought himself back to life; a man who beguiles many wives, sires dozens of children and is driven by money and greed. He builds a financial empire, establishing himself as a leader both on the exotic islands and in his Chinese homeland. But when Phoenix, the wife of his first son Tat-Tung, arrives in Hawai`i, she becomes witness to how the values Ah Leong holds dear begin to tear him and his family apart. The Money Dragon is a fascinating and important first novel, a tale of a family struggling between love, greed, jealousy and loyalty. Pam Chun reaches into her family history to deliver a story that shows the tumult and opportunity that occurs when the deep-rooted traditions of the Chinese people meet the sweeping advance of the Western world.

The Money Dragon: A Novel

Sourcebooks Landmark

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Books by Chun, Pam

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chun, Pam. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

When Strange Gods Call

When Strange Gods Call

The Perfect Tea Thief

The Money Dragon: A Novel