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Escape Into Books: An Exclusive Guest Post from Grace D. Li, Author of Portrait of a Thief — Our April Discover Pick
If you’re looking for a novel full of heists, travel, and an exploration of identity, particularly an exploration of being Chinese American, then look no further than our April Discover pick, Portrait of a Thief. This thrilling tale follows Will, a Harvard student comfortably living in his carefully curated roles, but when asked to pull together a team to heist five priceless Chinese paintings that had been stolen from Beijing centuries prior, he finds himself the leader of a heist crew with fifty million dollars, and their futures, on the line. It’s the perfect novel to escape into, and here we have five book recommendations from the author, Grace D. Li, that provided her with an escape!
Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to escapist books: books that make me laugh, that transport me elsewhere, that let me set aside the grief and uncertainty of our current time for a few hours. That’s not to say these books don’t have substance, because they do, but they also provide much-needed joy in our lives, a light touch when it comes to difficult subjects, and the promise that everything will turn out fine in the end, even if it’s not in the way we expected.
In putting together this (non-exhaustive!) list, I chose recent or upcoming titles that felt like a trusted friend taking my hand to go on an adventure. Whether it’s a high fantasy novel or a sharply observed contemporary romance, I hope you find something here to take you elsewhere. After all, great books have the ability to pull you under, into a different world, so that you can reemerge in this one changed from the person you were before.
I started reading this on a weekend evening and was up—giggling to myself—for the rest of the night. Seven Days in June is set among the Black literati scene in New York City, about a successful erotica author and a literary fiction author who fell madly, briefly in love as teenagers only to cross paths again in adulthood. It captures so perfectly the sweltering New York summertime, the sophistication (and pretentiousness!) of the literary scene, and the sensation of falling in love with someone you feel like you’ve known all your life. It’s also wildly funny. A perfect read for anyone who fell for Emily Henry’s Beach Read, but honestly a perfect read for anyone, anywhere, who’s looking to feel every emotion all at once.
I love everything Roselle Lim writes and reading Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club feels like stepping into your favorite dim sum restaurant on a blustery winter day. It follows professional matchmaker Sophie as she returns to her hometown of Toronto and agrees to find love for seven grumpy Chinese bachelors. These “Old Ducks” are by turn distrustful, hopeful, and uncertain about Sophie’s abilities, and it’s a joy to watch them begin to open up—and to see Sophie come into her own. This novel is every bit as heartwarming as it is thoughtful, full of good food, Toronto sights, and found family.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess reads just like all the best c-dramas/k-dramas: swoony, romantic, full of immortals and magic. It’s a retelling of the Chinese legend of Chang’e, the goddess of the moon, and her ill-fated love with the archer Houyi, but this time from the perspective of their daughter. When Xingyin’s existence is discovered, she flees from the moon and to the Celestial Kingdom, which is full of every wonder imaginable. The plot is intricate, spanning realms and all sorts of challenges, but the real joy here is in the characters and their relationships. Like every good drama, there’s a love triangle, and here it’s between a kind, gentle prince Xingyin first meets in the Celestial Kingdom and the stoic general she eventually fights with side-by-side.
This book is a smart, sophisticated take on Edwardian England (with magicians!), and it absolutely swept me away with its complex, contract-based magic system and gorgeous queer romance. Reading this book, I felt the same way I did while watching Bridgerton—like my expectations of a time period had been turned upside-down in the best possible way, featuring characters carving out space in a society that seldom leaves room for them. Marske’s debut is joyous, subversive, and absolutely addictive (and its companion A Restless Truth comes out this year!).
A reimagining of Dante’s Inferno by way of two teenagers discovering the planets are no longer in harmony, leading to disruptions to Earth’s natural phenomena and a discordance among the stars, this book is a gorgeous contemporary fantasy for anyone who has ever looked up at the sky and felt like there’s magic, or music, in the ways the planets spin. Bright has written a gorgeous, fantastical adventure to the stars, paralleling the long-ago explorers Dante and Beatrice, but also a deeply moving, hopeful story about healing in a world that’s harder and harder to make sense of.