THE ADMIRAL'S WIFE

Two women, separated by time, grapple with love and family in this historical novel.

Li Mingyu has preferred to use her American name, Patricia Findlay, ever since she married her husband, Andrew. Though born in Hong Kong, Patricia has spent most of her life in the United States and has lost much of her Cantonese. Now, in 2016, she and Andrew have left their American lives behind—including Patricia’s successful career in finance—and moved to Hong Kong in order to be closer to her parents and her native culture. But the transition has proved more difficult than Patricia anticipated, not least because her father, a powerful Chinese banker, is demanding that she give him an heir to inherit the family business even though she and Andrew have had difficulty conceiving. Intercut with Patricia’s story is that of Isabel Taylor, who moves to Hong Kong with her admiral husband, Henry, in 1912. There, she reconnects with Li Tao-Kai, also known as Teddy, a man she met a decade earlier when he was a university student attending a dinner at her family’s home. She finds herself drawn to Teddy, who moves effortlessly between worlds, but how close will she allow herself to get? As the two stories unfold one century apart, two women in a bustling city are caught between the demands of family and those of the heart. What’s more, their tales are more closely intertwined than they first appear to be. Tod’s observant prose captures Hong Kong, past and present, in evocative detail. Here, Patricia examines photographs from Isabel’s time period: “The contrast between those photos and the Hong Kong of today was remarkable. No glamorous high-rises or ultra-modern skyscrapers. No high-end stores offering designer brands. No smartly dressed women on their way to work. No red taxies or Porsches or Jaguars. She imagined the sounds and smells would also have been different.” The parallel narrative structure is a familiar one, but the author employs it well, slowly introducing elements that bind the two timelines together. Isabel’s story is perhaps more intriguing, but Patricia is a richly imagined character whose contemporary predicaments are illuminated via her investigations into the past.

A well-crafted tale of two women eking out new identities in Hong Kong.