How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story? Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. 'Within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.' A 'beautifully rendered' novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home (Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author). Maybe, for the first time in a long time, instead of. Now when I think about it, I realise he was at a peaceful point: he had recently retired and moved to a larger city, he was enjoying being a new grandfather. I have often wondered why he chose that moment to share his memories. I knew they would be important someday I just didn't know when. Throughout all the moves and miles, I have always known exactly where those notes were.

Since then, I have lived in six different houses and two different countries. Every date, every city, every scrap of memory he recalled. That afternoon in 1998, I wrote down everything he said.

Only once did he tell us about his youth in China and Taiwan. For a long time, I knew very little of this story. The backbone of the novel follows the trajectory of my father's life and many of his generation who lived through the Sino-Japanese and Chinese Civil wars. Here is one of the great gifts of fiction: from many threads of human experience, we can weave a tapestry of narrative. A family created from the stories and anecdotes I learned while researching Peach Blossom Spring. Interview A letter to readers from Melissa Fu about her debut novel Peach Blossom Spring

Peach blossom spring by melissa fu