China Girl

"There have been women trailblazers throughout American history, but no book has ever taken their perils and said, 'now this is how you achieve success.' This wonderful book takes lemons and turns them into lemon candy and cough drops to comfort and sooth the soul." —L. Marilyn Crawford Pres. and CEO Primetime Omnimedia & Symbiotic Pictures

THE STORY ... At sixteen years old, Anna Lee, the beautiful daughter of a traditional, wealthy Chinese couple, wants nothing more than to move to America, go to college, and embark on a life of excitement and glamour-far away from the stifling conventions of 1960's Hong Kong. But when she discovers that she is pregnant, after one sexual encounter with Raymond, a boy she doesn't love, everything changes. She moves to America as a poor, unhappy young married woman-who left her child behind with her parents without a second thought. Seven years later, that child, Lily Chang, boards a plane to join her unfamiliar family in America. Her new home is a strange and foreign world devoid of the love and affection her grandparents had bestowed upon her; her mother treats her like a maid, her younger brother hatefully pees in her bed, and her father begins to sexually abuse her. Only her baby sister, Cindy, seems to know how to love. Only in learning to forgive herself, can Anna begin to bring herself to Lily as a mother, and only in forgiving her mother, can Lily begin to figure out who she is as a young Chinese woman in America. China Girl is the first novel in the "Lemonade Series" by NBC Universal Executive, Sophie Mokhtari. With international, multicultural settings, this series of novels focuses on creating a "sweet" life out of "sour" circumstances in worlds of varied races, ethnicities and religious backgrounds. The goal of this series is to provide a voice for women who have suffered and to bring hope to all those who want to survive and succeed with strength and courage.