Homeseeking by Karissa Chen (Sceptre)
Wow! What a start to the 2025 reading year - if it continues like this I am really excited to see what else is coming!
One of my (unofficial) New Year Resolutions is to try and read the books that NetGalley give me access to much closer to publication day so that when I love them I can talk about them instantly and this was rewarded by the first two novels I've read this year.
Homeseeking is a sweeping following the lives of two people - Suchi and Haiwen who meet as children in 1930s Shanghai and then thanks to world events are separated. They meet occasionally through the decades until the (almost) present day when there is time to tell their full life stories.
I don't want to say much more about the plot because discovering how their lives unfold organically is what gives the book its emotional punch.
The way Chen weaves the two characters together is very clever and I don't think that I've come across a book told in this way, or at least told so well in this way, for a long time and it really helped move the story through time in an organic way.
The author's notes at the beginning of the book are essential to readers to explain why the protagonists seem to change name but apart from that there is very little extraneous historical research dumped in to the novel. Chen gives just enough details for you to follow world events and politics that influence the plot but never dumps huge chunks of history - if you are interested then there's plenty of other books/information out there to give more information and the works used for research are all given at the end of the novel.
I've already recommended this book personally to several people and I really hope they enjoy it - I'm just glad I read it now and didn't save it for a summer holiday read.
