Excerpt from Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Meilin's thoughts are interrupted by shrieking and giggling, followed by the sound of footsteps running across the courtyard. They thump up the stairs and down the corridor. Renshu and his cousin Liling burst into the room. Breathless and laughing, with messy hair, the two demand snacks. Renshu is three and a half, and Liling is five. Renshu's legs, still chubby, struggle to keep up with his adored cousin. Liling's face is so full of warmth and cheer that Meilin finds it hard not to smile when seeing her. When Renshu smiles, his solemn, round eyes crinkle into crescents, and the dimple in his left cheek reveals itself. Both children are flushed from racing around the compound. They have barrelled through the house, knocking on the doors of the scary nainai, the ugly nainai and the dead nainai, running away before anyone could catch them. After chasing the cats into corners, up the walls and out into the streets, they'd teased Yeye's goldfish in the pond by making shadows on the water and tapping the surface with sticks.

Now, they dig through Meilin's sewing basket, looking for the sweet lotus seeds she hides for them in the folds of cloth. Once the treats are devoured, Liling roars at Renshu. She chases him around the room, past the display cabinet, until he crouches behind a carved rosewood folding screen. When she holds her arms out, fingers wiggling to tickle him, he runs to the bedroom and hides under the bedclothes, knocking a pile of neatly folded laundry to the floor.

A sharp and impatient knock comes at the door. Liling dashes under the bed and Renshu pretends to sleep.

Meilin opens the door to Liling's mother, Wenling. Though it is nearing the end of a long day, Wenling's appearance is immaculate. For as long as Meilin has known her, Wenling has eschewed traditional dress and insisted on ordering the latest Western fashions. She is always careful that her oval face shows no blemishes, although it may boast the occasional beauty spot, depending on the trends. Today she wears her hair in glossy finger curls and exudes glamour with her dark mascara, black eyeliner, and scarlet lipstick. Sometimes Meilin is a bit intimidated by her sister-in-law's sophistication. Meilin has never bothered with the fashions. In place of powders, her nose is spattered with freckles, and her heart-shaped face suggests a radiant, rougher charm. Shorter than Wenling, she doesn't wear heels to make her any taller or tiny shoes to make her more feminine. Xiaowen has always said she is beautiful exactly as she is, and Meilin believes him.

As usual, Wenling is cross. Without bothering to acknowledge Meilin, she shouts for Liling to come out now, to stop playing, it's time for her bath.

Liling and Renshu stifle their laughter.

Wenling storms into the bedroom and stoops to look under the bed. She pulls Liling out by the ankle. When Liling stands, Wenling fusses about the line of dust on the front of her dress, glaring at Meilin. As Wenling drags her daughter downstairs, scolding her, Liling looks back and makes faces at Renshu.

Meilin motions for Renshu to tidy the mess. He tries his best, but soon tires of wrestling with the bedclothes and wanders back out to the front room to sit by his ma's side.

'Time to calm down now. You and your cousin are too naughty!' she scolds, shaking her head, but there's a lightness in her voice that suggests amusement more than reproach.

After Renshu's dinner and bath, Meilin readies him for bed. Since his birth, Meilin's days and heart have been full. She loves Renshu, not because his birth raises her place in the family, to the mother of a son of a son of Hongtse, and not just because his eyes and nose remind her of Xiaowen. She loves him because his laugh sounds like the wind playing temple bells in spring. She loves him because he fills her with a joy she hadn't known existed before he gave her his first smile. Having married late, at twenty-one, there were times she wondered if she would ever be a mother. She sings him to sleep with the 'Song of the Fishermen'. His eyes flutter closed; rest smooths his brow.

Excerpted from Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu. Copyright © 2022 by Melissa Fu. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.