Peach Blossom Spring: A glorious, sweeping novel about family and the search for home

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One night, while watching the stars, Feng Jiu ended up going to the Shui Yue Swamp, the barrier between the Dream World and the Real World. There, she found Dong Hua fighting with a water serpent and learned from the spirits watching that they had been fighting nonstop for two days, because the serpent wanted to devour the girl sleeping at the bottom of the lake. In the end, Feng Jiu returned to her original body and Dong Hua was injured. When they met, Dong Hua kissed her and said that the serpent's poison caused him to do so. Tender and graceful, this vivid historical novel shows the cost of war while celebrating the resilience of the human spirit and the life-affirming gifts of storytelling. -- Eithne Farry * The Mirror * Zhi He: Dong Hua's foster sister, she is arrogant and likes to show-off. Grew up in Tai Chen Palace, Zhi He is a water deity under Lian Song, and her duty was to call upon rain. She is also in love with Dong Hua, who only took care of her out of obligation to her parents. Zhi He often bullied Feng Jiu when she was a maid at Tai Chen Palace, never allowing her to meet Dong Hua in fear and jealousy of her beauty. When Feng Jiu was a fox, Zhi He also bullied her out of jealousy. Zhi He did not agree with Ji Heng marrying Dong Hua, and the day Feng Jiu left, she became the bride, causing her to be punished to the mortal realm. Richly described . . . deeply compassionate . . . a haunting tribute to immigrant families and a gorgeous meditation on how stories can shape identity."— Shelf Awareness For ages, Xiumi does not speak, communicating with Magpie only through written notes -- a less than ideal solution, given Magpie's illiteracy.

Xia Gu Chou: Lord of the Underworld in charge of human reincarnation, Gu Chou rarely interacts with other immortals or leave his realm. However, he managed to become friends with Feng Jiu, who often drinks and sends wine to him, and knew about her feelings and experience with Dong Hua. By Feng Jiu's request, he created Aranya. Knowing that Feng Jiu wanted the Saha fruit, Dong Hua got her name into the list of competitors and in thanks, Feng Jiu rented out a restaurant to treat him. However, the next day, Feng Jiu found herself confined and Dong Hua told her that he did this so that he could train her for the tournament.Both princesses were punished and when they returned to the capital, it was found that Ju Nuo's child is the result of an affair, so she was sentenced to death while Chang Di angered their father and was banished. Mo Ye requested Feng Jiu to repeat Aranya's life by saving Ju Nuo. In the original timeline, Chen Ye came out of seclusion and pleaded for Ju Nuo, his fiancée, and Aranya appeased her father's fury. In the end, Ju Nuo was banished and Chen Ye was under house arrest at Aranya's manor. Peach Blossom Paradise centers on Lu Xiumi, who is fifteen years old when the novel opens with her father -- long considered to have lost his sense of reason -- coming out of his studio and wandering off: removing himself from the family, he disappears without a trace. Show China. “Tao Yuan-ming.” China Intercontinental Digital Publisher: Beijing, 2006. Retrieved January 31, 2010 from http://www.showchina.org/en/02/03/200906/t338455.htm FAQs How is Peach Blossom Spring a utopian tale? › Xiumi also comes to learn that, unsurprisingly, Zhang Jiyuan is part of the same revolutionary group -- and, also unsurprisingly, he soon meets with a similar fate as Master Xue.

Making her so withdrawn and isolated, refusing to talk for long stretches, and even descending into a fog of ill- or madness numerous times sets her apart -- and when she is at her most active, trying to set up institutions to help her village the narrative moves to an even greater remove, referring to her often as 'the Principal' and focusing much more on what goes on around the household than the details of what she is doing in town. Melissa Fu chronicles a tumultuous period in Chinese history with stunning grace, while also offering us a fresh and important take on the immigrant story. In Dao Renshu’s family journey—fleeing from China during WWII, then finding and refinding himself in America—I recognized so many pieces of my own. Captivating from beginning to end.”— Mira T. Lee, author of Everything Here is Beautiful Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide.A complex work of alternative history (its invented characters commit deeds that parallel those of real revolutionaries in the late 1890s and early 1900s, while forming and breaking plenty of romantic attachments), it has been gracefully translated by Canaan Morse" - Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Times Literary Supplement Miao Luo: She is a demon created from the dark energy seeping out of the Hui Ming Realm. Dong Hua often has to meet with her whenever he comes to purify the Hui Ming Real. FU: I guess initially, I remember being quite curious about his past. And then somehow it was clear that we really shouldn't be asking, and he didn't want to talk about it. So we pretty much stopped - we meaning myself and - I've got two older brothers. A beautifully rendered meditation on the trials and triumphs of a family torn apart by war, Peach Blossom Spring left me pondering how the stories we choose to pass down have the power not only to define us, but to buoy us -- to help us persevere through the most challenging of times.' - Georgia Hunter

It's hard to believe this is a debut novel so accomplished is [Fu's] multi-generational family saga steeped in place and full of insightful political history. A new literary star dazzles in this stunning debut. -- Paul McVeigh Accomplished and utterly gripping, Peach Blossom Spring had me hooked, and completely unable to put it down until I'd finished. Crossing multiple generations and continents, this is the story of a single family living through war, heartbreak and passion. The full political complexity of twentieth-century Chinese history is here, and Fu effortlessly transports the reader into the mind of Meilin, a young girl living through it. We see how her devotion and the trauma she undergoes echoes through the generations of her family. Her son, Henry, is caught between two worlds and longs to be able to leave his past behind. Fu imbues all her characters with real, complex personalities and desires, which makes this a compulsive read. One of my best books of the year.' - Catherine Menon Magpie has to rush over to master Ding's with each note to learn what the missives say -- but eventually they decide she might as well try to learn how to read for herself, and she does, so something positive comes from it; she also eventually proves to be quite the poet. Mi Gu: Feng Jiu's housekeeper who previously served Bai Qian, Mi Gu holds the title of a Xian Jun and is a tree spirit. The disappearance of the pater familias -- even (or especially ...) if he was hardly compos mentis any longer, and thus hardly really led the family in any meaningful way-- is appropriately symbolic for the times and place presented here, a nation losing its traditional moorings.Xiang Li Ju Nuo: Aranya's older half-sister, the daughter of the previous king of the Bi Yi Niao, the current queen in real time, and Xiang Li Meng's mother. Her mother's favorite, Ju Nuo grew up with a gold spoon and was dearly protected despite her step-father's hatred. She became Chen Ye's fiancée and queen of the Bi Yi Niao through her mother's arrangement. Expansive, atmospheric, and affecting. Peach Blossom Spring shows just how much the human heart can hold, and it left me breathless.” Although Tao Chien tells us that he is fond of nature by inclination, there is a sense that his joy in nature is heightened after his disillusionment with public life during a period when China was occupied by alien tribes in the north and was rift apart by the civil strife and political corruption of the government (Palandri, 1988). We learn little of what happened in the interim, beyond that she spent time in Japan and that she has a son, called Little Thing -- and: "one thing was obvious: Xiumi wasn't the Xiumi of ten years ago".

Feng Jiu rushed to the Holy Blue Sea to find Dong Hua fighting with the demoness of the Hui Ming Realm, Miao Luo. Dong Hua had created a barrier to keep everyone out, but Feng Jiu managed to enter because of the ring. She ended up injured and laid dying in Dong Hua's arms. All hope of saving the two seemed lost until Bai Qian, Ye Hua, and Mo Yuan appeared, broke the barrier, and sealed off the dark energy of the Hui Ming Realm. For Qing Hua's, Aranya's mother's, birthday, Xiang Li Que, the emperor, decided to go on a cruise to view camellias. On the ship, Feng Jiu met Aranya's sisters and her husband, Xi Ze, the former Archmage. Since it was his first time meeting Xi Ze, Mo Ye found a picture of him and realized that the Xi Ze he met is actually Dong Hua, but doesn't tell Feng Jiu, who did not recognize Dong Hua due to magic interference. Seeing him sad and lovelorn over Aranya, Feng Jiu thought to take him to see the Yue Ling flowers to cheer him up, but ending up going with Dong Hua instead. Mo Yuan: Known as the revered God of War, he is the master of Kun Lun Mountain, Ye Hua's twin brother and Bai Qian's teacher. Magical, and powerful, Peach Blossom Spring brings to life the costs of wars and conflicts while illuminating the spirit of human survival. Inspired by her father's real-life experiences and her determination to comprehend her family's past, Melissa Fu has gifted us with a timely, moving, and universal novel -- Nguyen Phan Que Mai, author of THE MOUNTAINS SINGXiang Li Chang Di: Aranya's little sister, she is their father's beloved and grew up in the palace with Ju Nuo, causing her to become arrogant and willful. Despite being full blooded sisters, Chang Di doesn't like Aranya, even wants her dead, and is in love with Dong Hua in the Dream World. In the end, Chang Di was banished and went mad. It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin's future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.