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Ghost Girl, Banana

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Set between the last years of the "Chinese Windrush" in 1966 and Hong Kong's Handover to China in 1997, a mysterious inheritance sees a young woman from London uncovering buried secrets in her late mother's homeland in this captivating, wry debut about family, identity, and the price of belonging.

Hong Kong, 1966. Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honor to her family. But as she trains to become a nurse in cold and wet England, Sook-Yin realizes that, like so many transplants, she must carve out a destiny of her own to survive.

Thirty years later in London, having lost her mother as a small child, biracial misfit Lily can only remember what Maya, her preternaturally perfect older sister, has told her about Sook-Yin. Unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, Lily embarks on a secret pilgrimage across the world to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward. But just as change is coming to Hong Kong, so Lily learns Maya's secrecy about their past has deep roots, and that good fortune comes at a price.

Heartfelt, wry and achingly real, Ghost Girl, Banana marks the stunning debut of a writer-to-watch.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 3, 2023
      Wharton’s heartfelt debut centers on a British woman of Hong Kong descent trying to solve the mystery of her mother’s death. In 1997 London, Lily, whose mother died years ago in a car accident, receives a mysterious letter about a half-million–dollar inheritance left to her by a Hong Kong banking magnate named Hei-Fong Lee. In 1966, Lily’s mother, Sook-Yin Chen, is seen as a burden to her family and exiled from Kowloon, Hong Kong, to Britain to become a nurse. However, she fails her qualifying exam and instead finds work as a nanny. She meets Julian Miller, an entrepreneur who coerces her into sex under the pretense of helping her land a better job. When Sook-Yin becomes pregnant, Julian proposes to her, and she accepts for her financial security, but Julian’s gambling and adultery threaten their marriage. Several years later, while visiting her family in Hong Kong, Sook-Yin reconnects with an old flame, Hei-Fong Lee, who leads her on a tumultuous journey of love and self-discovery. The letter in 1997 sends Lily to Kowloon to get answers about the mother she never knew. Despite a few muddled plot points, the pitch-perfect pacing and well-crafted protagonists will keep readers turning the pages. This is a writer to look out for.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from June 10, 2024

      In Wharton's debut novel, 26-year-old Londoner Lily discovers that she has inherited a small fortune from Hei Fong Lee, an entrepreneur she doesn't know. Lily, who struggles with depression, has always lived in the shadow of her perfect sister Maya, who attempts to hide that she, too, has inherited money. Lily barely remembers anything about her mother, Sook-Yin, and suddenly decides to visit her family to learn more about the inheritance and her family history. Hong Kong is poised to be turned over to China in 1997, and the city's turmoil reflects what Lily learns about her mother and how she was treated after she left home for a London nursing school in 1966. Hong Kong-born narrator Jennifer Leong's accented English is full of hopeful longing as she perfectly voices the chapters from Sook-Yin's point of view. In contrast, Hanako Footman expertly narrates Lily's chapters with a posh British accent that manages to vividly express her character's mental exhaustion. Wharton strategically addresses the racism that the women encounter and also the discrimination that Sook-Yin faces for marrying a white man who isn't the man she thinks he is. VERDICT Recommend to book clubs and fans of historical mysteries and family epics.--Sarah Hill

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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