Daughters of the Sun and Moon

See’s stirring novel (after Lady Tan’s Circle of Women) interweaves the stories of three Chinese immigrants in 19th-century Los Angeles. In 1870, the small, dirty city is home to just 180 Chinese residents, including 30-odd women. That year, Dove’s scholarly Cantonese father earns a large “bride price” by arranging her marriage to an elderly Los Angeles merchant who covets the status conferred by a young, beautiful wife. After Petal’s starving peasant family sells her into servitude, she’s forced to perform sex work at a brothel controlled by one of the city’s Chinese tongs. By chance, Dove and Petal meet Moon, a happily married woman trying to get pregnant, and they bond over their mutual powerlessness. (“Not one of the thirty-four Chinese women in Los Angeles came here by choice,” Moon observes dryly.) All three are endangered when white rioters loot the Chinese community and massacre nearly 20 men in October 1871. See builds a taut story from precise details, such as the fact that Petal will have to service an average of seven men a day, six days a week, to earn out her four-year contract. Without minimizing the period’s racism and misogyny, See offers an inspiring vision of female resilience. Agent: Sandy Dijkstra, Sandy Dijkstra Agency. (June)