Lisa See Author of the critically-acclaimed international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, will be the guest of honour in Book & Books’ first book club mixer

On Friday, 16 May at 6:30 PM, Books & Books Grand Cayman will host its first Book Club Mixer: Passport to Reading Party, a soiree for book clubbers and book club hopefuls. Everyone is invited to set sail on their own book club journey by swapping stories with other book lovers, finding common book interests, exchanging email addresses and starting new clubs. Carol Fitzgerald, co-founder of Book Report Network and www.readinggroupguides.com, and Books & Books Book Club Coordinator Debra Linn will discuss what makes the best book-club book and which new books you simply can’t miss this summer. And there’ll be scores of free advance copies of upcoming books from the publishers, along with refreshments.

The evening’s guest of honour is Lisa See, author of the critically-acclaimed international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005). Ms. See was born in Paris but grew up in Los Angeles, spending much of her time in Chinatown. Her first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995), was a US bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book. The book traces the journey of Lisa’s great-grandfather, Fong See, who overcame obstacles at every step to become the 100-year-old godfather of Los Angeles’s Chinatown and the patriarch of a sprawling family.

See has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up, whether in the past or happening right now in the world today. For Snow Flower, she travelled to a remote area of China – where she was told she was only the second foreigner ever to visit – to research the secret writing invented, used, and kept a secret by women for over a thousand years. Amy Tan called the novel “achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination.” Others agreed, and foreign-language rights for Snow Flower were sold to 36 countries. The novel also became a New York Times bestseller, a Booksense Number One Pick, and has won numerous awards both in the US and internationally.

Ms. See’s new novel, Peony in Love (Random House, $14), once again delves into forgotten history. It takes place in 17th-century China in the Yangzi River delta. It’s based on the true story of three “lovesick maidens,” who were married to the same man – one right after the other, not one reaching age twenty.

Together they wrote the first book of its kind to have been written and published anywhere in the world by women. (The lovesick maidens were part of a much larger phenomenon. In the 17th century, there were more women writers in China who were being published than altogether in the rest of the world at that time.) Ultimately, Peony in Love is about the bonds of female friendship, the power of words, the desire that all women have to be heard.

Both events are free and open to the public and are generously sponsored by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Sunshine Suites Resort.