The Valley of Amazement - Couverture souple

“Here are strong women struggling to survive all that life has thrown at them, created by a writer skilled at evoking the roil of emotions and made exploits they experience when they follow their hearts.” (New York Times Book Review)

“[A] novel that grabs your soul.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“This utterly engrossing novel is highly recommended to all readers who appreciate an author’s ability to transport them to a new world they will not forget. As a plus, this reviewer sensed the harbinger of a sequel by the last page.” (Library Journal (starred review))

“Tan is a skilled storyteller. . . A satisfyingly complete, expertly paced yarn.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Tan’s prodigious, sumptuously descriptive, historically grounded, sexually candid, and elaborately plotted novel counters violence, exploitation, betrayal, and tragic cultural divides with beauty, wit, and transcendent friendship between women.” (Booklist (starred review))

“The author of The Joy Luck Club and The Hundred Secret Senses can deliver a sweeping family saga like nobody else.” (Newsday (Fall Preview))

“Amy Tan is one of our blackest-belted scriveners, and this is her masterwork.” (Mary Karr, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Liars' Club, Cherry, and Lit)

Fans of Tan’s previous works (including The Joy Luck Club) will rejoice when they get their hands on this book. (Real Simple)

“[THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT is] akin to her earlier work, yet more sophisticated, and a fine reminder that Amy Tan is herself a master of illusion, and one of the best storytellers around.” (NPR)

“It’s been a long eight years since Amy Tan’s last novel, but THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT proves that good things--breathtaking things--come to those who wait. [...] It’s wonderful to be back in Amy’s magical and amazing world.” (Lisa See, author of international bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and Shanghai Girls)

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. When political upheaval separates Violet from her mother, she is forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese, half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West—until she merges her two identities to become a shrewd courtesan, though privately she still struggles to understand who she is. San Francisco, 1897. Violet's mother chooses a disastrous course as a sixteen-year-old, following a Chinese painter to Shanghai, where she finds herself shocked by her lover's adherence to Chinese traditions.

Fueled by betrayals, both women refuse to submit to fate, persisting in their quests to recover what was taken from them: respect; a secure future; and love, from their parents, husbands, and children. An evocative narrative of the connections between mothers and daughters, imbued with Tan's characteristic insight and humor, The Valley of Amazement conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and obstinacy of love.