The Fire Horse Girl
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A fiery and romantic adventure, perfect for fans of Grace Lin, Kristen Cashore, or Lisa See!Jade Moon is a Fire Horse -- the worst sign in the Chinese zodiac for girls, said to make them stubborn, willful, and far too imaginative. But while her family despairs of marrying her off, she has a passionate heart and powerful dreams, and wants only to find a way to make them come true.Then a young man named Sterling Promise offers Jade Moon and her father a chance to go to America. While Sterling Promise's smooth manners couldn't be more different from her impulsive nature, Jade Moon falls in love with him on the long voyage. But America in 1923 doesn't want many Chinese immigrants, and when they are detained at Angel Island, the "Ellis Island of the West," she discovers a betrayal that destroys all her dreams. To get into America, much less survive there, Jade Moon will have to use all her stubbornness and will to break a new path... one so brave and dangerous, only a Fire Horse girl could imagine it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sixteen-year-old Jade Moon was born in the unlucky year of the fire horse, making all her faults "burn with increased strength." In 1923 China, she is trapped in a small town where she is vilified by neighbors and ignored by her father and grandfather. Hope arrives in the form of a man named Sterling Promise, who needs Jade Moon's father's help getting into America. Jade Moon joins them, though she doesn't entirely know why ("Women are brought to America either to be wives or prostitutes," Jade Moon is warned en route. "You may have dreams, but your father and Sterling Promise have plans"). Debut author Honeyman faces head-on the racism and hardship that awaited Chinese immigrants; when Jade Moon's application for entry is denied, she steals Sterling's identity and papers, ending up in San Francisco's Chinatown disguised as a man. Historical details create a strong sense of setting, and readers will recognize (well before Jade Moon does) that her inner fire is an asset, and that she's much more than the sign under which she was born. Ages 12 up.