cover image Sunlight Playing over a Mountain

Sunlight Playing over a Mountain

Selina Li Bi. Soho, $19.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-64129-648-9

Raised on fantastical stories spun by her free-spirited single mother, an artistic 15-year-old must face a harsh reality when a family secret is discovered in Li Bi’s melancholy novel. Chinese Filipina Jasmine Cheng, who has only known a life in small Midwestern Briarplace with her ill mother, is responsible for keeping their precarious lifestyle intact. According to her mother, Jasmine’s father is Pangu, the world’s creator. Her mother’s stories bring her solace as she contends with her mother’s refusal to divulge anything more about her father and the frequent comings and goings of ill-intentioned boyfriends who bring nothing but chaos and fear into their lives. Then Child Protective Services takes an interest in their household and starts asking questions, the answers to which could upend Jasmine’s whole life. The sudden arrival of her mother’s old flame sets a series of emotionally tumultuous events into motion, sending the mother-daughter duo across the country to face the past. Throughout, Jasmine contends with racism, the prospect of foster care, first love, and complicated feelings surrounding her mother’s condition, circumstances which Li Bi depicts in dreamlike, Chinese mythology–tinged prose. Ages 14–up. Agent: Linda Camacho, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Apr.)