Jade City is an epic tale of family, honor, and those who live and die by the ancient laws of jade and blood. Set in the bustling metropolis of Kekon, jade is the most precious commodity, enhancing the abilities of the honorable Green Bone warriors. The Kaul family has long used it to protect the island from invasion. But as a new generation vies for power, they face not only their rivals but also a changing world.
When a revolutionary drug allows anyone to wield jade's power, the city's delicate balance is shattered, leading to a violent clan war that will determine the fate of all Green Bones. Fonda Lee crafts a narrative that is as gripping as it is immersive, inviting readers into a world where the lines between right and wrong are as complex as the city of Kekon itself.
There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones.
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters — strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis — survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.