Ghost Girl, Banana

April 3, 2023
Wharton’s heartfelt debut centers on a British woman of Hong Kong descent trying to solve the mystery of her mother’s death. In 1997 London, Lily, whose mother died years ago in a car accident, receives a mysterious letter about a half-million–dollar inheritance left to her by a Hong Kong banking magnate named Hei-Fong Lee. In 1966, Lily’s mother, Sook-Yin Chen, is seen as a burden to her family and exiled from Kowloon, Hong Kong, to Britain to become a nurse. However, she fails her qualifying exam and instead finds work as a nanny. She meets Julian Miller, an entrepreneur who coerces her into sex under the pretense of helping her land a better job. When Sook-Yin becomes pregnant, Julian proposes to her, and she accepts for her financial security, but Julian’s gambling and adultery threaten their marriage. Several years later, while visiting her family in Hong Kong, Sook-Yin reconnects with an old flame, Hei-Fong Lee, who leads her on a tumultuous journey of love and self-discovery. The letter in 1997 sends Lily to Kowloon to get answers about the mother she never knew. Despite a few muddled plot points, the pitch-perfect pacing and well-crafted protagonists will keep readers turning the pages. This is a writer to look out for.

March 31, 2023

DEBUT Chinese British author Wharton presents the well-crafted story of Lily Miller; her older sister Maya; and the mystery behind a bequest of one million British pounds sterling (500,000 pounds each) made by a stranger named Hei-Fong Lee that the sisters can claim only by going to Hong Kong. The unfolding narrative focuses on the journey to England of Sook-Yin Chen, the sisters' mother, her journey to England, and her life as a wife of Julian Miller and a young mother. In alternating chapters, readers follow Lily's harrowing journey to Hong Kong prior to the handover to China in 1997 and her attempt to learn more about and connect with her Asian heritage and also striving to uncover the link between Hei-Fong Lee and her mother. Wharton is skilled at creating characters, and though the frequency of shifting storylines owing to short chapters can be a bit daunting, it doesn't wholly deter readers from comfortably following the text. VERDICT A debut work of historical fiction with strong storytelling that readers of Lisa See, Jamie Ford, and Gail Tsukiyama will enjoy; book groups should appreciate this first novel and look forward to Wharton's future work.--Shirley Quan

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2023
Londoner Lily Chen descends into the maze of 1990s Hong Kong to piece together her late mother's secret past in this slow-burning mystery. Some people learn about their family histories through photo albums and bedtime stories. Twenty-five-year-old Lily Miller, formerly Li-Li Chen, receives a letter in the mail at her London home informing her of a large inheritance from a stranger that has some connection to her late mother, Sook-Yin Chen. Still recovering from a suicide attempt she made while studying at Cambridge, Lily finds herself jolted out of her passive routine--volunteering and therapy--and takes off for the labyrinthine metropolis of Hong Kong two months before the 1997 handover from the U.K. to China. In alternating chapters we learn that, back in 1966, Sook-Yin was sent by her family from Kowloon to London to train as a nurse. The journey was less a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity than a semipermanent exile ending with her death in a suspicious "road accident." In a series of gut-wrenching conversations, Lily discovers the price that Sook-Yin paid for surviving in her new environment: By choosing to "give up her culture" and become "a banana," she lost the respect of her loved ones back home. Treading sure-footedly on uneven terrain, author Wharton unpacks chauvinist attitudes about race and nationality from the perspectives of both the colonized and the colonizers, painting, through bitter twists and turns, a picture of diasporic people whose origins are their most valuable MacGuffins. Two complex histories are nested within one another, a testament to the mutually inextricable struggles of a mother and daughter who, in life, pass each other like two ships in the night. Brimming with cinematic tension, this novel offers relationships and revelations more precious than a 500,000 pound inheritance.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 1, 2023
Sook-Yin was 22 years old in 1966 when she was sent to England from Kowloon, Hong Kong, for a job, enabling her to mail money home. Sook-Yin's determination and innate intelligence helped her overcome countless obstacles made worse by racism and sexism, and she was proud of what she'd accomplished. When an accident ended her life too soon, Sook-Yin's daughters, Maya and Lily, aged seven and five, were left with few memories as they struggled to adapt to their father's English world. Now Lily is 25 and ready to reclaim the mother she barely knew by facing secrets from the past. While sharing a wealth of nuanced historical details of everyday life in two very different cultures and in very different time periods, first-time novelist Wharton is able to keep the focus on her characters. As she alternates between the primary voices of Sook-Yin in the past and Lily in the present, the secondary characters are also fully realized and add depth to this rich family saga. Knowing the date of Sook-Yin's death won't truly prepare readers for the story's full heartbreaking impact, yet they will want to experience the love and loss all over again soon after the final page is turned.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.