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Corre el año 1937 cuando Shanghai está considerada el París del continente asiático. En la sofisticada y opulenta ciudad, donde conviven mendigos, millonarios, gángsters, jugadores y artistas, la vida sonríe a las hermanas Pearl y May Chin, hijas de un acaudalado hombre de negocios.

De temperamentos casi opuestos, las dos son hermosas y jóvenes, y pese haber sido criadas en el seno de una familia de viejos valores tradicionales, viven con la sola preocupación de asimilar todo lo que llega de Occidente. Visten a la última moda y posan para los artistas publicitarios, que ven en el retrato de las dos hermanas la proyección de los sueños de prosperidad de todo un país. Pero cuando la fortuna familiar sufre un golpe irreversible, el futuro que aguarda a Pearl y May tiñe sus vidas de una sensación de precariedad e incertidumbre hasta ese momento impensable. Con los bombardeos japoneses a las puertas de la ciudad, las hermanas iniciarán un viaje que marcará sus vidas para siempre, y cuando lleguen a su destino en California, su compleja relación se pondrá de manifiesto: ambas luchan por permanecer unidas, a pesar de los celos y la rivalidad, a la vez que intentan hallar fuerzas para salir adelante en las más que difíciles circunstancias que el destino les depara.

En una remota provincia de China, las mujeres crearon hace siglos un lenguaje secreto para comunicarse libremente entre sí, el nu shu. Aisladas en sus casas y sometidas a la férrea autoridad masculina, el nu shu era su única vía de escape. Mediante sus mensajes, escritos o bordados en telas, abanicos y otros objetos, daban testimonio de un mundo tan sofisticado como implacable. El año 2002, Lisa See viajó a la provincia de Huan, cuna de esta milenaria escritura fonética, para estudiarla en profundidad. Su prolongada estancia le permitió recoger testimonios de mujeres que la conocían, así como de la última hablante de nu shu, la nonagenaria Yang Huanyi.

A partir de aquellas investigaciones. concibió esta conmovedora historia sobre la amistad entre dos mujeres. Lirio Blanco y Flor de Nieve. Como prueba de su buena estrella, la pequeña Lirio Blanco, hija de una humilde familia de campesinos, será hermanada con Flor de Nieve, de muy diferente ascendencia social. En una ceremonia ancestral, ambas se convierten en laotong -“mi otro yo” o “alma gemela”-, un vínculo que perdurará toda la vida. Así pues, a lo largo de los años. Lirio Blanco y Flor de Nieve se comunicarán gracias a este lenguaje secreto, compartiendo sus más íntimos pensamientos y emociones, y consolándose de las penalidades del matrimonio y la maternidad. El nu shu las mantendrá unidas, hasta que un error de interpretación amenazará con truncar su profunda amistad…

The Interior, Lisa See's gripping follow-up to her best-selling novel Flower Net, follows Liu Hulan and David Stark into China 's remote countryside on a heart-pounding journey that begins as a favor to an old friend- and ends with a shocking revelation of murder, betrayal, and greed. After a hit and run accident that leaves a close friend dead, David accepts the job opportunity of a lifetime when he's asked to open a law office for Phillips, MacKenzie Stout in Hulan's home city of Beijing. Meanwhile, Hulan has received an urgent message from an old friend imploring her to investigate the suspicious death of her daughter. The scent of trouble wafts up almost immediately as David and Hulan realize their separate cases have a surprising element in common: the dead girl worked for Knight International, the toy company about to be sold to David's new biggest client, Tartan Enterprises.

In spite of David's protests, Hulan goes undercover, transforming herself from Red Princess to peasant girl, to gain entry into the Knight factory compound. Once inside, rather than finding answers to the girl's death, Hulan unearths more questions, all of which point to possible crimes committed by David's client- ranging from corruption to child labor to unsafe manufacturing practices to far worse. Suddenly Hulan and David find themselves on opposite corners: One of them is trying to expose a company and unearth a killer, while the other is ethically bound to protect his client. Their independent activities collide when a female worker, who gets seriously wounded on the factory floor where Hulan is working, later winds up dead- her body discovered close to where David is finalizing the details of the merger with Knight and Tartan executives.

As the body count rises, the "accidents" and "suicides" begin to look more and more like cold-blooded murders, with the possible suspects ranging from an old peasant farmer to a popular government official to the genius inventor behind Knight International's wildly popular action figure toys. Hulan's trip into the countryside to help piece together clues about her friend's daughter's life brings her back to the past she's long been running from- and forces her to face some ugly truths about herself. At the same time, David sees that his deep desire to overlook the truth- about Hulan's feelings concerning his move to Beijing, about his colleague's death, about his new client's activities- could possibly cost him everything, both professionally and personally.

Deftly weaving her plot from the affluent streets of Los Angeles to the teeming city of Beijing to the primitive culture of China's country villages, Lisa See reveals the striking contrast between Eastern tradition and Western beliefs, the privilege and betrayal of the ruling class, the poverty and desperation of peasant life, and the pull of professional duty and the power of "true heart love." An enthralling story that keeps you guessing until the end, The Interior takes readers deep into the heart of China to reveal universal truths about good and evil, right and wrong- and the sometimes subtle lines that distinguish them.

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"Lisa See is one of the classier practitioners of that ready-for-Hollywood genre, the international thrillerÖ She draws her characters (especially her Chinese heroine, Liu Hulan) with convincing depth, and offers up documentary social detail that reeks of freshly raked muckÖ Seeís China is as vivid as Upton Sinclairís Chicago." The New York Times

"[Seeís] true ambition is not simply to entertain (which she does) but to illuminate the exotic society that is contemporary China, and to explore the consequences ‚ present and future ‚ of its growing partnership with the United StatesÖ See paints a fascinating portrait of a complex and enigmatic society, in which nothing is ever quite as it appears, and of the people, peasant and aristocrat alike, who are bound by its subtle strictures." The San Diego Union Tribune

"SophisticatedÖ.Seeís writing is more graceful than is common in the genre, and she still has China passionately observed." The Los Angeles Times

"The Interior is packed with well-researched and nuanced reporting on todayís ChinaÖHulan is an insightful guide to both Chinese corruption and those who resist it." Washington Post

"Immediate, haunting and exquisitely rendered, a fine line drawing of the sights and smells of the road overseas." San Francisco Chronicle

"[An] unflinching portrait [of] modern-day China." Booklist

"The novel eschews any cheap exoticism to plunge the reader into the puzzle that is China today as seen through the eyes of outsiders. A unique read, whose credible protagonists make this a thriller with a heart." The Saturday Review

"A cracking good story." The Good Book Guide

"The strength of Seeís work here is her detailed and intimate knowledge of contemporary China, its mores, its peculiar mixture of the traditional and the contemporary, and its often bedeviled relationships with the U.S. " Publishers Weekly

"A must-read for those looking for foreign intrigue." Rocky Mountain News

"A well-written book with a complex plotÖShines a harsh and revealing light on the modern-day Chinese interior and on Beijing, the real China beneath the postcard imagesÖShe explores themes of Old China and new China, and how the more things change the more they remain the same. She illuminates tradition and change, Western and Eastern cultural differences, and the real politics behind the system. All this in the middle of her thriller which is also about greed, corruption, abuse of the disadvantaged, the desperation of those on the bottom of the food chain, and love." Nashville Tennessean

"A unique readÖa thriller with a heart." The Guardian

La trama china explora el fascinante y emocionante mundo de las regiones más remotas de China, donde la lealtad, la codicia y el amor se enfrentan con aterradoras consecuencias.

La detective china Liu Hu-lan y su prometido, el abogado estadounidense David Stark, se ven enfrentados a una asombrosa trama de violencia y conspiración cuando una vieja amiga -de una aldea del interior de China- le pide a Hu-lan que descubra la verdad sobre el sospechoso suicidio de su hija.

El caso resulta alarmantemente personal por partida doble, ya que involucra el propio pasado de la detective y el siniestro secreto de una fábrica estadounidense de juguetes ligada al bufete de David.

Una subyugadora novela de intriga, con una ambientación generosa en matices y enriquecida con la complejidad de las relaciones entre dos culturas diferentes.

For readers of the phenomenal bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love-a stunning new novel from Lisa See about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930s Los Angeles.

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl ’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “ Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.

But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)-where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months-they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.

A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and bestselling author Lisa See.

Inspectora Liu, ¿necesito recordarle que China tiene costumbres y rituales para tratar a sus huéspedes? Use su shigu, su experiencia de la vida.

Todos los extranjeros, tanto si se trata de desconocidos o de demonios como este visitante, son potencialmente peligrosos. No demuestre ira ni irritación. Sea humilde, prudente y cortés.

El viceministro apoyó la mano sobre el hombro de la inspectora.

Hágale creer que existe un vínculo entre usted y él. Así hemos tratado a los extranjeros durante siglos. Así tratará usted a este extranjero mientras sea nuestro huésped.”`

En un lago helado de Pekín aparece el cadáver del hijo del embajador norteamericano. La difícil y ardua investigación es asignada a la inspectora Liu Hulan. A miles de kilómetros, un ayudante de la fiscalía de Los Ángeles encuentra en un barco de inmigrantes ilegales el cadáver de un Príncipe Rojo, el hijo de uno de los hombres más influyentes de China…

Una impactante novela de intriga que recrea el conflicto que se produce entre dos países diametralmente opuestos cuando sus gobiernos se ven obligados a colaborar en pie de igualdad.