What a difference a century makes. One hundred years ago, a generous-hearted, independent-minded, Hong Kong-born Briton found a baby girl abandoned on his doorstep in Changsha, in China's Hunan province. He took her in and made her part of his family but, in doing so, drew the disapproval of his compatriots.
While widening income inequality is a divisive issue in Hong Kong today, in 19th- and early 20th-century "Britain in China", race and class divided the world of treaty ports and foreign enclaves.
Chance events play a much larger role in life than many people once imagined.
Most of us have no difficulty recognizing luck when it’s on conspicuous display, as when someone wins the lottery. But randomness often plays out in subtle ways, and it’s easy to construct narratives that portray success as having been inevitable. Those stories are almost invariably misleading, however, a simple fact that has surprising implications for public policy.
It’s a sad truth: No matter how much progress women have made in the workplace — and it’s still pretty limited — the message about our romantic prospects remains stubbornly mired in the past.
The first adult novel (and with its scenes of sex and violence, it's very, very adult) from young adult author Wasserman, much of its power depends on the suspense that she carefully constructs. That's not to say this is a run-of-the-mill thriller; it's a perfectly constructed literary novel, but one that dares its readers to put it down.
And it's nearly impossible to put down. Much of that is because Wasserman's characters are so flawlessly realized — Hannah is an appealing everygirl, Lacey is compelling and terrifying, and Nikki is surprisingly complex, a sadistic manipulator who may or may not actually have a good heart.