FROM BEIJING, WITH LOVE

Daniel Wu likes order. When he gets dumped on the same day a mistake threatens to get him fired from his IT job, his life explodes into chaos.

That’s when he does something out of character by booking a last-minute flight from Amsterdam, where he lives, to see his friend Poppy in Beijing. And when Poppy turns out to be off traveling, he ends up alone in a country he’s never visited, though it’s where his late father grew up. To apologize, Poppy books him a tour of Mutianyu—a well-preserved section of the Great Wall. Enter Yang Li, a Ph.D. student in biophysics moonlighting as a tour guide, who’s annoyed by how high-maintenance his client is. When Daniel leaves his wallet in Yang’s car, the grumpy tour guide drops it off, in the process learning that Daniel is exactly the right person to help him with a programming issue for a paper he’s writing. They’re thrown together again when Poppy books another tour to force Daniel out of the comfort of the hotel. What follows is a whirlwind romance with an expiration date since Daniel will be returning to Amsterdam. The two men forge ahead anyway. The backdrop of Chinese history and cuisine is beautifully rendered, and the differences in how same-sex attraction is treated in China and the Netherlands give these dynamic characters very different relationships to queerness. Daniel’s obsessive-compulsive disorder is present without becoming the only thing that defines him. The two men’s growing attraction is evident early on, and the wait as they work through obstacles is rewarded with some really hot sex scenes. There are a few supporting characters, but none as present as Poppy, who deserves her own sequel. For a romance that takes place in a short period of time, the setting makes it feel sprawling and epic.

Readers should prepare to be swept off their feet.