5 Must-Read Books Releasing in December 2024 By Asian Authors
This December, warm your heart with these five highly anticipated reads by Asian authors, perfect for brightening the season's shortest days!
Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe
A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret.
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim as she freely uses her beauty and charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret; once they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang Dynasty China.
A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.
Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Reimagining the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake,” this is a novel about being seen for who you are—and, ultimately, how to live free.
Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Queer
Publication date: December 3, 2024
Pages: 272
Why should you read it? “Sister Snake” is a bold, darkly funny, and emotionally raw novel intertwining modern struggles with ancient mythology as two estranged sisters—one a politician's wife in Singapore and the other a free-spirited sugar baby in New York—navigate their shared secret of once being snakes in Tang Dynasty China. Through sharp humor and poignant themes of identity, queerness, and rebellion against conformity, the novel reimagines the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake” into a glittering tale of family, freedom, and self-discovery.
Rental House by Weike Wang
From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?
With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction
Publication date: December 3, 2024
Pages: 224
Why should you read it? From the award-winning author of Chemistry, Weike Wang’s sharp-witted novel explores the complexities of marriage and family through two unforgettable vacations where cultural clashes and generational tensions come to a head. As Keru and Nate, a Chinese immigrant and a rural working-class American, navigate their families' differences, they grapple with universal questions about love, belonging, and the meaning of family. With Wang's trademark humor and insight, this tender, incisive story offers a fresh, relatable look at modern relationships.
Apartment Women by Gu Byeong-mo
From the New York Times Notable author of The Old Woman with the Knife comes a bracingly original story of family, marriage and the cultural expectations of motherhood, about four women whose lives intersect in dramatic and unexpected ways at a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul.
When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years. Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colors.
Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start? A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Apartment Women incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women’s parenting labor, challenging the age-old assumption that “it takes a village” to raise a child.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction
Publication date: December 3, 2024
Pages: 224
Why should you read it? Apartment Women is a bold and thought-provoking novel set in a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul, where residents are incentivized to boost the national birth rate. Through the lives of four women, the story unpacks the cultural pressures of motherhood, the fraught dynamics of communal parenting, and the societal expectations that shape family life. With sharp social commentary, this original tale challenges the notion that “it takes a village” while illuminating the hidden imbalances of women’s parenting labor in modern society.
A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars #2) by Thea Guanzon
wo hearts circle each other in the eye of the storm in this highly-anticipated follow-up to The Hurricane Wars—prepare for more enemies-to-lovers romance, magical adventures, and political schemes in this Southeast Asian-inspired world.
After a lifetime of war, Alaric and Talasyn were thrust into an alliance between their homelands that was supposed to end the fighting; however, being married to their sworn foe feels far from peaceful. Now Talasyn must play the part of Alaric’s willing empress while her allies secretly plot to overthrow his reign. But the longer the couple are forced together, the harder it becomes to deny the feelings crackling like lightning between them. When the time comes to act, can she trust him, or must she ignore her heart for the sake of so many others?
As the master of the Shadowforged Legion, Alaric has trained for battle all his life, but marrying a Lightweaver might be his most dangerous challenge yet. With tensions between nations churning, he needs to focus on the greater threat—the Moonless Dark, a cataclysmic magical event that could devour everything. Only he and Talasyn can stop it, with a powerful merging of light and shadow that they alone can create together. But saving their world from this disaster is a mere preface to his father’s more sinister schemes, and his wife is a burning flame in the darkness, tempting both his loyalties and his desires.
The Hurricane Wars aren’t over. It’s time to choose what—and who—to fight for. The world holds its breath amidst a whirlwind of new magic and old secrets that could change everything.
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Fantasy
Publication date: December 10, 2024
Pages: 400
Why should you read it? In the spellbinding follow-up to The Hurricane Wars, tensions soar as Talasyn and Alaric navigate a fraught marriage of political necessity while grappling with forbidden desires and a looming magical apocalypse. Set in a richly imagined Southeast Asian-inspired world, this tale brims with enemies-to-lovers romance, intricate political schemes, and the explosive interplay of light and shadow magic. As they face the catastrophic Moonless Dark and uncover old secrets, Talasyn and Alaric must decide who and what they’re willing to fight for in a world on the brink of transformation.
Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Widow #1) by Xiran Jay Zhao
After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself at the seat of power in Huaxia. But she has also learned that her world is not as it seems, and revelations about an enemy more daunting than Zetian imagined forces her to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Despite having vastly different ideas about how they must deconstruct the corrupt and misogynist system that plagues their country, Zetian must join this man in a dance of truth and lies and perform their roles to perfection in order to take down their common enemy, who seeks to control them as puppets while dangling one of Zetian’s loved ones as a hostage.
With political unrest and perilous forces aiming to undermine Zetian at every turn, can she enact positive changes as a fair and just ruler? Or will she be forced to rely on fear and violence and succumb to her darker instincts in her quest for vengeance?
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Queer
Publication date: December 24, 2024
Pages: 400
Why should you read it? In this gripping continuation of Zetian’s journey, she ascends to power in Huaxia, only to face an even more formidable enemy while contending with a dangerous partner who challenges her vision for dismantling a corrupt, misogynist system. As political unrest and personal stakes escalate, Zetian must navigate a treacherous web of lies, truth, and manipulation to protect her loved ones and enact change—while resisting the pull of her darker instincts. “Heavenly Tyrant” promises high-stakes intrigue, moral dilemmas, and a fierce battle for justice.
