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Shop nowDiamond Head
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Learn moreDiamond Head is a sweeping debut from a young, powerful new voice in fiction that follows four generations of a wealthy shipping family whose rise and decline is riddled with secrets and tragic love.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Frank Leong, a fabulously wealthy shipping industrialist, moves his family from China to the island of Oahu. But something ancient follows the Leongs to Hawaii, haunting them. The fabled red string of fate, the cord that binds intended lovers, also punishes mistakes in love, passing a destructive knot down the family line.
When Frank Leong is murdered, his family is thrown into a perilous downward spiral. Left to rebuild in their patriarch's shadow, the surviving members of the Leong family try their hand at a new, ordinary life, vowing to bury their gilded past. Still, the island continues to whisper fragments of truth and chatter, until a letter arrives two decades later carrying a shattering confession.
Now the Leongs' survival rests with young Theresa, Frank Leong's only grandchild, eighteen and pregnant, the heir apparent to her ancestors' punishing knots.
Told through the eyes of the Leong's secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.
Cecily Wong graduated from Barnard College, where the first pages of Diamond Head won the Peter S. Prescott Prize for Prose in 2010, judged by Elizabeth Strout, Caryl Philipps, and Malena Watrous. Chinese-Hawaiian herself, she was born on Oahu. She currently lives and writes in New York City.
Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004, winning three AudioFile Earphones Awards. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world—from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Her credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hope & Faith, All My Children, Made for Each Other, and the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River.
Samantha Quan is a graduate of the Graduate Acting Program at New York University. She has performed on stage in New York and regionally, including at the Ensemble Studio Theater and the Globe Theaters. Samantha presently resides in Los Angeles, where she works in film and television.
Angela Lin, an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA degree in drama. A critically acclaimed actress, her credits include The Good Wife, Law & Order: SVU, and As the World Turns, among others.
Janet Song is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards and was named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of 2008. Recent audiobooks include Euna Lee’s The World is Bigger Now and Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls. She lives and works in Southern California as an actor on stage and screen.
Emily Woo Zeller is an Audie and Earphones Award–winning narrator, voice-over artist, actor, dancer, and choreographer. AudioFile magazine named her one of the Best Voices of 2013. Her voice-over career includes work in animated film and television in Southeast Asia.
Reviews
“Ms. Wong’s first novel is a vivid story of a family’s journey over time. We live and breathe with her characters as we witness history shaping family and family creating its own history. Diamond Head is a jewel of a saga.”
“In Diamond Head, Wong has crafted a delicate tower of mystery and history…Wong’s prose is lyrical and nearly poetic…Lovely.”
“A sweeping family saga in the tradition of Amy Tan. Told from multiple points of view and moving back and forth in time over several generations of the Leong family, the story centers on how people remain tied to one another…Wong perceptively captures her cast of characters and their setting.”
“Will hook readers from the first page and not let go until the final tragic secret is revealed…By skillfully weaving a murder mystery into the story, Wong keeps the pace moving, and the twist ending is a surprise…Reading groups and fans of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club will enjoy exploring Chinese Hawaiian history and culture with this lovely novel.”
“Wong’s multigenerational Hawaiian saga of deception and loyalty evocatively captures the tightly controlled worlds of privilege and power.”
“The fate and fortunes of a Sino-Hawaiian family are altered by bad romantic choices…Wong’s pellucid prose style keeps the pages turning…A promising debut.”
“Cecily Wong’s lush debut novel hooked me in right away as it slowly unraveled the tangle of secrets the Leong family has kept for decades. Diamond Head is an intricate meditation on what is in our control and what is fate.”
“A shimmering tapestry of secrets and betrayals, beautifully told through the eyes of the women of the wealthy Leong family. An eye-opening, poignant read set against the backdrop of Hawaii’s rich history.”
“Rich and compelling…With keen insight, effused with sadness and hope, Diamond Head is an auspicious debut.”
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