NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION 2024 FIRST NOVEL PRIZEIn this “espionage-laden family epic” (Vanity Fair), an ordinary housewife becomes an unlikely spy—and her dark secrets will test even the most unbreakable ties.Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fujiwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Ten y
