Peony in Love by Lisa See Paperback Book

Details

Rent Peony in Love

Author: Lisa See

Format: Quality Paperback, Abridged-CD

Publisher: Random House Trade

Published: Feb 2008

Genre: Fiction - Historical - General

Retail Price: $18.00

Pages: 320

Synopsis

“I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret.”

For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own.

Peony’s mother is against her daughter’s attending the production: “Unmarried girls should not be seen in public.” But Peony’s father assures his wife that proprieties will be maintained, and that the women will watch the opera from behind a screen. Yet through its cracks, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave–and is immediately overcome with emotion.

So begins Peony’s unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow–as Lisa See’s haunting new novel, based on actual historical events, takes readers back to seventeenth-century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed.

Steeped in traditions and ritual, this story brings to life another time and place–even the intricate realm of the afterworld, with its protocols, pathways, and stages of existence, a vividly imagined place where one’s soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth. Immersed in the richness and magic of the Chinese vision of the afterlife, transcending even death, Peony in Love explores, beautifully, the many manifestations of love. Ultimately, Lisa See’s new novel addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard.


From the Hardcover edition.

View descriptions at Amazon.com

Recommended

A Reliable Wife
by Robert Goolrick

Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered...

The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield

Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with...

Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks

Young Anna Frith, a vicar's maid, is faced with the loss of her family, the disintegration of her local community, and a passionate, illicit love as...

Sarah's Key
by Tatiana De Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she...

Mistress of the Art of...
by Ariana Franklin

The national bestselling hit hailed by the New York Times as a 'vibrant medieval mystery...[it] outdoes the competition.' In medieval Cambridge,...

The Boleyn Inheritance
by Philippa Gregory

ANNE OF CLEVES: She runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a court ruled by the terror of a vengeful king who...

Hotel on the Corner of...
by Jamie Ford

Sentimental, heartfelt... the exploration of Henry's changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A...

March
by Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks takes a very minor character from Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN--Mr. March, the girls’ preacher father--and makes him...

Reviews