The Agony of the Leaves

(book club with literary crossover)

Someone sits down with a cup of tea. And Tea begins to speak. Over the centuries, and through the stories of people whose lives are shaped by tea, unfolds a story of revolution and colonies and war.

From ancient China to colonial India and World War II London… through a holy man whose anger gives birth to tea, a revolutionary couple in a underground queer teahouse, and a girl determined to save herself and her mother, Tea tells its story. This is a story of a simple plant that changed the world—and the people who faced the sweeping historical forces set off by tea. It is the story of despair and determination, of difficult choices and the desire to make our own destiny.

The Keepers and the Hungry Ghost

(middle grade contemporary fantasy novel)

Two twelve-year-old Taiwanese Americans are under attack by hungry ghosts–and one of the ghosts is their own great-grandfather! They discover they belong to a family lineage of Keepers, charged with witnessing and preserving the essence of the Taiwanese people–and their great-grandfather, once a Keeper himself, became a hungry ghost due to decades of trauma under martial law. 

Soon they are journeying across the US to uncover their great-grandfather’s story and heal him. But will they be able to save their great-grandfather’s spirit–and take their place as Keepers of Taiwan’s essence–before being killed by ghosts themselves?