According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine. Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife --- embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility but also danger. Little do they know that after surviving hundreds of dives and developing the closest of bonds, forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point.

In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, life goes on as it has for generations --- until a stranger appears at the village gate. Slowly, Li-yan begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock, she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her near an orphanage. Despite being raised by loving adoptive parents, Li-yan’s daughter, Haley, wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. When Li-yan has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket and abandons her in the nearest city. While Li-yan slowly emerges from the insularity of her village to encounter modern life, her daughter Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins, and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.

Grace, Helen and Ruby, three young women from very different backgrounds, meet by chance at the exclusive and glamorous Forbidden City nightclub in 1938 San Francisco. They become fast friends, relying on one another through unexpected challenges and shifting fortunes. But after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, paranoia and suspicion threaten to destroy their lives, and a shocking act of betrayal changes everything.

In 1867, Lisa See’s great-great-grandfather arrived in America, where he prescribed herbal remedies to immigrant laborers who were treated little better than slaves. His son, Fong See, later built a mercantile empire and married a Caucasian woman, in spite of laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Lisa herself grew up playing in her family’s antiques store in Los Angeles’s Chinatown, listening to stories of missionaries and prostitutes, movie stars and Chinese baseball teams. With these stories and her own years of research, Lisa See chronicles the 100-year-odyssey of her Chinese-American family, a history that encompasses racism, romance, secret marriages, entrepreneurial genius and much more, as two distinctly different cultures meet in a new world.

In DREAMS OF JOY, Lisa See returns to the story of sisters Pearl and May from SHANGHAI GIRLS, and Pearl’s strong-willed 19-year-old daughter Joy, who runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father.

At its heart, Lisa See's latest novel is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends, who share hopes, dreams and a deep connection. But like sisters everywhere, they know exactly where to drive the knife so that it hurts the most --- which also makes it a tale of terrible sacrifices, impossible choices and one devastating secret.

In nineteenth-century China, seven-year-old Lily is paired with a laotong, "old same," in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. They communicate in a secret written language, and together they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood --- until a misunderstanding arises and threatens to tear apart.