"Peach Blossom Spring" by Melissa Fu - Historical Fiction Book Club - Past Titles

About the Author: Melissa Fu

Melissa Fu grew up in Northern New Mexico and now lives near Cambridge, UK, with her husband and children. She graduated from Rice University, cum laude, with a double major in Physics and English and went on to earn a Masters in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Masters in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has worked in education as a teacher, curriculum developer, and consultant.

Melissa was the regional winner of the Words and Women 2016 Prose Competition and was a 2017 Apprentice with the London-based Word Factory. Her work appears in several publications including The Lonely Crowd, International Literature Showcase, Bare Fiction, Wasafiri Online, and The Willowherb Review. In 2019, her debut poetry pamphlet was published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press. In 2018/2019, Melissa received an Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice grant and was the David TK Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia.

Her first novel, Peach Blossom Spring, was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick in the UK and a 2022 Indies Introduce title for the American Booksellers Association. It is available in English, Dutch and Italian. Hungarian, Romanian and German editions are forthcoming.

Peach Blossom Spring is her first novel.

Synopsis

1938, China. 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?

Historical Timeline

1940s:

1940-1941: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist government (Kuomintang or KMT) form a united front against the common enemy, Japan.
1941 (December 7): The attack on Pearl Harbor brings the United States into World War II. China becomes one of the Allies.
1942-1945: The Doolittle Raid, launched from aircraft carriers, targets Tokyo and boosts Chinese morale. The Flying Tigers, a group of American volunteer pilots, also play a crucial role in supporting Chinese resistance.
1943-1945: The Cairo Conference (1943) and the Potsdam Conference (1945) address post-war plans for Asia, including the return of territories occupied by Japan to China.
1945 (August 15): Japan announces its surrender, marking the end of World War II.
1945 (September 2): The official surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. China's territories, including Taiwan and the Pescadores, are returned.
1946-1949: The Chinese Civil War resumes between the CCP and the KMT. The CCP, led by Mao Zedong, ultimately emerges victorious, establishing the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

This timeline provides an overview of the major events in China during the 1930s and 1940s, a period of intense conflict and transformation in the country's history.

The timeline of China in the 1930s and 1940s was marked by significant political, social, and military events, including the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Here is a general timeline of key events during this period:

1930s:

1931 (September 18): The Mukden Incident occurs when Japanese forces stage a bombing near Mukden (Shenyang), providing a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria.
1932: The establishment of Manchukuo, a puppet state in Manchuria by the Empire of Japan.
1937 (July 7): The Marco Polo Bridge Incident marks the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan's invasion of China intensifies.
1937-1945: The Second Sino-Japanese War continues with major battles such as the Battle of Shanghai and the Rape of Nanking. The conflict becomes part of the broader Pacific Theater of World War II.
1937-1941: The Chinese resistance against Japanese occupation takes various forms, including guerrilla warfare and the establishment of anti-Japanese bases.

1940s:

1940-1941: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist government (Kuomintang or KMT) form a united front against the common enemy, Japan.
1941 (December 7): The attack on Pearl Harbor brings the United States into World War II. China becomes one of the Allies.
1942-1945: The Doolittle Raid, launched from aircraft carriers, targets Tokyo and boosts Chinese morale. The Flying Tigers, a group of American volunteer pilots, also play a crucial role in supporting Chinese resistance.
1943-1945: The Cairo Conference (1943) and the Potsdam Conference (1945) address post-war plans for Asia, including the return of territories occupied by Japan to China.
1945 (August 15): Japan announces its surrender, marking the end of World War II.
1945 (September 2): The official surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. China's territories, including Taiwan and the Pescadores, are returned.
1946-1949: The Chinese Civil War resumes between the CCP and the KMT. The CCP, led by Mao Zedong, ultimately emerges victorious, establishing the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

This timeline provides an overview of the major events in China during the 1930s and 1940s, a period of intense conflict and transformation in the country's history.

1930s:

1931 (September 18): The Mukden Incident occurs when Japanese forces stage a bombing near Mukden (Shenyang), providing a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria.
1932: The establishment of Manchukuo, a puppet state in Manchuria by the Empire of Japan.
1937 (July 7): The Marco Polo Bridge Incident marks the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan's invasion of China intensifies.
1937-1945: The Second Sino-Japanese War continues with major battles such as the Battle of Shanghai and the Rape of Nanking. The conflict becomes part of the broader Pacific Theater of World War II.
1937-1941: The Chinese resistance against Japanese occupation takes various forms, including guerrilla warfare and the establishment of anti-Japanese bases.

1940s:

1940-1941: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist government (Kuomintang or KMT) form a united front against the common enemy, Japan.
1941 (December 7): The attack on Pearl Harbor brings the United States into World War II. China becomes one of the Allies.
1942-1945: The Doolittle Raid, launched from aircraft carriers, targets Tokyo and boosts Chinese morale. The Flying Tigers, a group of American volunteer pilots, also play a crucial role in supporting Chinese resistance.
1943-1945: The Cairo Conference (1943) and the Potsdam Conference (1945) address post-war plans for Asia, including the return of territories occupied by Japan to China.
1945 (August 15): Japan announces its surrender, marking the end of World War II.
1945 (September 2): The official surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. China's territories, including Taiwan and the Pescadores, are returned.
1946-1949: The Chinese Civil War resumes between the CCP and the KMT. The CCP, led by Mao Zedong, ultimately emerges victorious, establishing the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

This timeline provides an overview of the major events in China during the 1930s and 1940s, a period of intense conflict and transformation in the country's history.

MLN Materials

book
spoken CD

Audiobook Versions

Libby

The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti
Call Number: Fiction Enjeti
The story begins in August 1947. Unrest plagues the streets of New Delhi leading up to the birth of the Muslim majority nation of Pakistan, and the Hindu majority nation of India. Sixteen-year-old Deepa navigates the changing politics of her home, finding solace in messages of intricate origami from her secret boyfriend Amir. Soon Amir flees with his family to Pakistan and a tragedy forces Deepa to leave the subcontinent forever. The story also begins sixty years later and half a world away, in Atlanta. While grieving both a pregnancy loss and the implosion of her marriage, Deepa's granddaughter Shan begins the search for her estranged grandmother, a prickly woman who had little interest in knowing her. As she pieces together her family history shattered by the Partition, Shan discovers how little she actually knows about the women in her family and what they endured.
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
Call Number: FICTION Ford
Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living. As Washington's former poet laureate, that's how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help. Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America. As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn't the only thing she's inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who's loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.
The Kinship of Secrets by Eugenia Kim
Call Number: FICTION Kim
From the author of The Calligrapher's Daughter comes the riveting story of two sisters, one raised in the United States, the other in South Korea, and the family that bound them together even as the Korean War kept them apart.
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
Call Number: FICTION Kwok
A poignant and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties binding three women--two sisters and their mother--in one Chinese immigrant family and explores what happens when the eldest daughter disappears, and a series of family secrets emerge. Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother-- and vanishes. Amy is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie, who was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place. Amy flies to the last place Sylvie was seen, retracing her sister's movements. It seems Sylvie kept painful secrets that reveal more about Amy's family than she ever could have imagined.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Call Number: FICTION Lee
A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone. PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

*ebook & audiobook on Libby
Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen
Call Number: FICTION Nguyen
When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle into life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father. Over time, Huong realizes she will never see Cong again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memory and imagination. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong takes up with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--tears them apart, until disaster strikes and they must find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.
The Mortifications by Derek Palacio
Call Number: FICTION Palacio
In 1980, a rural Cuban family is torn apart during the Mariel Boatlift. Uxbal Encarnación--father, husband, political insurgent--refuses to leave behind the revolutionary ideals and lush tomato farms of his sun-soaked homeland. His wife Soledad takes young Isabel and Ulises hostage and flees with them to America, leaving behind Uxbal for the promise of a better life. But instead of settling with fellow Cuban immigrants in Miami's familiar heat, Soledad pushes further north into the stark, wintry landscape of Hartford, Connecticut. There, in the long shadow of their estranged patriarch, now just a distant memory, the exiled mother and her children begin a process of growth and transformation. Each struggles and flourishes in their own way: Isabel, spiritually hungry and desperate for higher purpose, finds herself tethered to death and the dying in uncanny ways. Ulises is bookish and awkwardly tall, like his father, whose memory haunts and shapes the boy's thoughts and desires. Presiding over them both is Soledad. Once consumed by her love for her husband, she begins a tempestuous new relationship with a Dutch tobacco farmer. But just as the Encarnacións begin to cultivate their strange new way of life, Cuba calls them back. Uxbal is alive, and waiting. Breathtaking, soulful, and profound, The Mortifications is an intoxicating family saga and a timely, urgent expression of longing for one's true homeland.