The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

A Novel

    • 4.4 • 1.1K Ratings
    • $13.99
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, “one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot” (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.

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, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.

The stranger’s arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock—conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice—she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.

As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, 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.

A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2017
March 21
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
384
Pages
PUBLISHER
Scribner
SELLER
Simon & Schuster Digital Sales LLC
SIZE
10.7
MB

Customer Reviews

brilovesrunning ,

I loved this book

I learned a lot, and it wasn’t at all what I expected. 4 stars because I feel robbed of an epilogue, a truly truly amazing book.

C. Laurin ,

Amazing research

I really enjoyed this thoroughly researched story. The writing was very well-structured and the storyline flawless. So it was a great read for me. That being said, it felt a bit formulaic and expository. Nothing wrong with that, it just didn’t feel like a literary journey, more like a love story on several levels (parent-child, romantic partner), stitching together facts and situations surrounding Chinese adoptees, and those of the tea world. I appreciated the neatly tied threads of all the individual story lines, but found all that the coincidences a bit fairytale-ish.
Still liked it very much.

Edesert ,

Took me a minute

I felt like it took me a bit to get into this book. It didn’t capture me right away but boy did it get better and better. The Ending was so unexpected 💕

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