A couple of years back I saw a paperback book I wanted at the airport but there wasn’t time to make the purchase. It was a recent novel (at the time) by a Chinese woman about being an au pair to a white couple adopting a Chinese baby. There was a coming of age theme, and the book also dealt with immigrant isolation. The author was a Stanford grad. I thought the title to be Family Ties or Family Lives, and that the author’s last name was Lee. Searching by any of that info has proved fruitless. Would you be able to shed any light on my problem? Thank you.

Sounds like you maybe looking for Happy Family for Wendy Lee...

When Hua Wu arrives in New York City, her life seems destined to resemble that of countless immigrants before her. She spends her hectic days in a restaurant in Chinatown, and her lonesome nights in a noisy, crowded tenement, yearning for those she left behind. But one day in a park in the West Village, Hua meets Jane Templeton and her daughter, Lily, a two-year-old adopted from China. Eager to expose Lily to the language and culture of her birth country, Jane hires Hua to be her nanny.