In Five Poems Lake, a town surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps an apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends her family’s pharmacy of traditional medicine. She has few customers, and even fewer visitors. Her father was found dead by the lake twelve years ago, in unexplained circumstances. Her elder sister, Dong Ji, works at a wellness parlour across town for those who can afford it – which, during these strange and difficult days, is not many.

The town fell on hard times long before the sun began to shrink. But now, as the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the inhabitants of the town realise there is no way they can survive. When the Beacons appear – ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns – the residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. Soon, Dong Ji and her sister will uncover a photograph which may offer a clue in the mystery of the Beacons, and finally help them learn what happened to their father.

PRAISE FOR AN YU
‘Rich and wild? it gets under your skin’ Observer
‘Profound‘ Guardian
‘A supremely confident and gifted writer‘ Katie Kitamura
‘Beautiful‘ New Statesman
‘Seductive‘ Daily Mail
‘Spellbinding‘ New York Times
‘Steeped in atmosphere‘ Mail on Sunday

She finds herself adrift, but her husband seems reluctant for a child of their own. It takes the arrival of her mother-in-law, together with sudden strange parcels and stranger dreams, to shake Song Yan from her malaise. Summoned to an ancient house in the heart of the city, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of the pain and beauty in her life?

‘There’s something here of early Murakami’s graceful, open-ended approach to the uncanny… Ghost Music is an evocative exploration of what it means to live fully’ New York Times Book Review

‘Knits together music and life to touch on something profound’ Guardian

For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. With her marriage, she gave up on her own career as a concert pianist, but her husband Bowen has long rebuffed her desire to have a child.

Instead, she must accommodate her mother-in-law, newly arrived from the province of Yunnan and bringing with her long-buried family secrets. Soon strange parcels start to show up on the doorstep and Song Yan’s dreams become troubling and claustrophobic. Striking out alone through the winter city, she finds herself pulled into the ancient hutongs to confront the source of her unease.

In a silent room within a timeless house, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of all the pain and beauty in her life?

Praise for Braised Pork:

‘Startlingly original’ Guardian
‘Intensely atmospheric’ LA Review of Books
‘Otherworldly and deeply moving’ BuzzFeed
‘Real magic’ LitHub
‘Shimmering’ Wall Street Journal
‘Rich and wild’ Observer
‘Enchanting’ Shelf Awareness
‘Electric’ TIME