Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters

A sheltered son from an intellectual family in Shanghai, Benfu spends 1966 anticipating a promising violinist career and an arranged marriage. On the other side of town lives Pony Boy, a member of a lower-class family - but Benfu's best friend all the same. Their futures look different but guaranteed...until they're faced with a perilous opportunity to leave a mark on history.

Coming of age during China’s Cultural Revolution, Benfu survived the cruel years, but he did not emerge unscathed. The Scavenger’s Daughters is the story of Benfu and his beloved wife Calli, chronicling their attempts to build a life in the turmoil and aftermath of Maoist China. At the heart of their struggle lies the pain of losing their only child. To fill the terrible hole in their lives, they take in abandoned girls - the unwanted "weeds" - as their own, lovingly caring for them as flowers in a garden.

The pain of China’s Cultural Revolution well behind them, Benfu and his treasured Calla Lily are content in their old age surrounded by their family of adopted daughters. Once abandoned, the girls are now cherished members of the Zheng family. Yet there remains an emptiness in their hearts: their only biological daughter, Dahlia, was abducted as a newborn 30 years before. When their daughter Linnea discovers an unexpected clue about what really happened to Dahlia, the elderly couple’s hopes are reignited.

Even after a decade of pain, Ivy remains closely tethered to Lily - her blind twin sister - and haunted by her mother’s admission the night their home burned, almost taking Lily’s life: “I’m sorry. Take care of your sister.” Years later, as Lily begins to navigate the world on her own, the police mistakenly toss the blind girl in a cell, and Ivy realizes she must find her twin at all costs…even if that means risking her own freedom.

In the fourth book of the Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters series, the fates of three people who've never met converge in profound and unexpected ways.