Monday Morning

Many thanks for all the great comments, so far, on my short story unit post. Because I have to get back on the wagon with compiling my daughter’s high school transcript, which means I need to keep things organized, I decided to move it here — I’d like to invite you to come visit!

This weekly meme is hosted by the fabulous Sheila at Book Journey.

What I’m Reading Now:

from the book jacket: A stunning debut, A Thread of Sky is the story of a family of six fiercely independent women and the powerful thread that binds their lives.

When her husband of thirty years is killed in a devastating accident, Irene Shen and her three daughters are set adrift. Nora, the eldest, retreats into her high-powered New York job and a troubled relationship. Kay, the headstrong middle child, escapes to China to learn the language and heritage of her parents. Sophie, the sensitive and artistic youngest, is trapped at home until college, increasingly estranged from her family—and herself. Terrified of being left alone with her grief, Irene plans a tour of mainland China’s must-sees, reuniting three generations of women—her three daughters, her distant poet sister, and her formidable eighty-year-old mother—in a desperate attempt to heal her fractured family.

If only it were so easy. Each woman arrives bearing secrets big and small, and as they travel—visiting untouched sections of the Great Wall and the seedy bars of Shanghai, the beautiful ancient temples and cold, modern shopping emporiums—they begin to wonder if they will ever find the China they seek, the one their family fled long ago.

Over days and miles they slowly find their way toward a new understanding of themselves, of one another, and of the vast complexity of their homeland, only to have their new bonds tested as never before when the darkest, most carefully guarded secret of all spirals to the surface and threatens to tear their family apart forever.

A Thread of Sky is a beautifully written and deeply haunting story about love and sacrifice, history and memory, sisterhood and motherhood, and the connections that endure.