Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. 269 pages, Paperback

were treated as property; the terrible trek up the mountains to escape from the horrors of the Taiping Rebellion; the painful return down the mountain with dead bodies everywhere. Some estimate that the number of people killed during the rebellion was approximately twenty million.

Lily's need for love and her inability to forgive what she considers to be acts of betrayal cause her to inflict harm on many people, Snow Flower most of all. Believing that Snow Flower has not been true to her, Lily betrays her by sharing her secrets to a group of women, destroying Snow Flower's reputation. When Snow Flower is dying, Lily is called to her bedside and tends to her until the end.

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As the book returns to the present (1903), Lily is now an 80-year-old woman who has lived forty years after her dearest friend's death. Her own husband and children have since died, and she quietly watches the next generation in her home.