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Fishbone Cinderella

by Elizabeth Lim

A family curse across generations

Regular price $25.96 USD
Regular price $43.27 USD Sale price $25.96 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Author recognition

    #1 New York Times bestselling author

    The source describes Elizabeth Lim as a #1 New York Times bestselling author.

  • Critical praise

    Library Journal starred review

    Starred review describing the novel as a heart-wrenching and magical multi-generational story.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A family curse across generations

Set between 1940s Hong Kong and 1960s San Francisco, Fishbone Cinderella connects a mother’s wartime escape and constrained life with her daughter’s effort to understand a frightening family secret. Ha Yut Ying’s ability to turn invisible becomes part of a story shaped by war, immigration, ambition, forbidden love, and loss. Years later, Marigold’s search for answers draws her toward the history her family has tried to leave behind. Elizabeth Lim’s novel recasts Cinderella through a mother-daughter relationship, tracing how the past can shape the next generation and how magic becomes bound up with questions of visibility, inheritance, and redemption.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in historical fantasy spanning Hong Kong and San Francisco.
  • For readers drawn to mother-daughter stories and family secrets.
  • For readers who enjoy fairy-tale adaptations woven with themes of migration and inherited history.

Themes

Mother-daughter bondsWar and immigrationFamily secrets and inheritanceVisibility and disappearanceFairy-tale adaptation

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A mother and daughter must break their family's curse through trials of war and immigration, love, loss, and redemption in this "enchanting multi-generational tale" (People) with a shimmer of magic, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Forgery of Fate.

This stunning hardcover edition includes designed full-color endpapers and a family tree interior illustration.

★"Lim dazzles in her dark and deftly woven adult debut. . . . Blending the historically grounded and complex mother-daughter narratives of Amy Tan with the rich fantasy of Yangsze Choo, this stunning tale will delight. . . . This is a gem."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

1940s Hong Kong
When Japanese soldiers invade her hometown, Ha Yut Ying makes an unlikely escape--by turning invisible. But her miraculous survival is only the beginning. After the war is over, she's sent to Hong Kong to live with her distant father and glamorous stepmother, who end her dreams of becoming a singer and turn her into the family's servant. As the years pass, Yut Ying learns the hard truths of betrayal and ambition, of forbidden love and devastating loss, and discovers that sometimes the only way to endure is to disappear.

1960s San Francisco
Marigold has always had a knack for uncovering secrets, but nothing prepares her for the day she accidentally witnesses her mother vanish before her eyes. The moment fractures their bond, leaving questions that shadow her entire childhood. But when her mother's condition suddenly deteriorates, Marigold is convinced she's the only person who can save her. To do so, she must journey into the secrets her mother never shared and uncover the tragic, fairytale-tinged history their family has fought to forget.

A story of mothers and daughters, the scars they inherit and the magic that binds them, Fishbone Cinderella is a tender and enchanting exploration of what it means, at last, to be seen.

★ "[Elizabeth Lim's] heart-wrenching and magical first adult novel is a multi-generational story that adapts a foundational fairy tale and creates a story of mothers, daughters, and a past that haunts their futures."--Library Journal (starred review)
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