A Certain Smile

The Story

Judith Michael's trademark storytelling verve combined with fascinating settings and characters who live on the page have won this husband-and-wife team an audience of millions. Their tenth novel, A Certain Smile, is a bittersweet story of a perfect but impossible love, set against the teeming, complex energy and hidden dangers of contemporary China. Miranda Graham, a clothing designer and the widowed mother of two teenagers, travels to China to work with the factories that will produce her designs. Sheltered, uncertain of herself, Miranda has always stayed close to her parents and her home. At first overwhelmed by the chaotic foreignness of China, she soon discovers what she never expected or would have believed possible: a passionate, all-consuming love. Yuan Li, son of a Chinese mother and an American soldier, had his family turned upside down by the Cultural Revolution. Now, in the new China, he owns a large and successful construction company. What begins as a friendship based on curiosity and attraction soon blooms into a love affair passionate enough to topple the cultural wall that divides them. They spend every available moment together, until the realities of China--an intrusive government, corrupt businessmen, and Li's wildly ambitious son--test their love in the complex crucible of politics, nationality, and family loyalties. Judith Michael has written an expansive, unforgettable story that explores two hearts shrouded by their own history suddenly blossoming. And they show us how true love can change a person forever, opening the way to passion, fulfillment, hope--and a certain smile.