Naomi uproots her life from New York when her fiance’s company transfers him to Shanghai. After a disastrous turn of events, she finds herself with no job, no boyfriend, and nowhere to live in a foreign country. Logan is a womanizing restaurateur looking for love in all the wrong places. Shanghai socialite Joss leads an enviable life but must take great pains to harbor the secrets of her husband, Tay. Silver-aged Jinsung and Zhangjie struggle with adapting to the ever-changing faces of their city. Dante, who had just returned to China after spending years overseas, must choose between being filial and being in love. All their dreams and aspirations interweave within the sprawling web of Shanghai, amidst the city welcoming millions of workers and visitors to the 2010 World Expo.

A sweeping, multilayered novel exploring a kaleidoscope of relationships-familial friction, amorous entanglements, volatile friendships-this lustrous meditation on love is a paean to one of the most dynamic metropolises of the twenty-first century.

Review Quotes:

This heartfelt, transporting story sparkles with a constellation of characters who call this city home while pursuing their China dream. As multifaceted as Shanghai itself, this novel follows overlapping narratives about the complexities of adulting, of parenting, of the urban quest for love and finding one’s place in the world.

-EMILY TING, film director of Go Back to China and Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong

Awash with cosmopolitan expats and jet-setting locals, Love and Other Moods shimmers like the diamonds adorning China’s glitterati, while exposing haunting personal histories and intergenerational strife. With dazzling twirls around Shanghai’s World Expo, glitzy fashion shows, art deco architecture, jazz clubs, gourmet restaurants, and disappearing food stalls, this novel compellingly pulls the reader into the pleasures and pains of becoming an adult in a city soaring to global status.

-JENNY LIN, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California and author of Above sea: Contemporary art, urban culture, and the fashioning of global Shanghai