The Manor of Dreams

Hardcover, 352 pages

ISBN:: 978-1-6680-5172-6

Mexican Gothic meets Everything I Never Told You in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.

They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But silence can be deadly.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career and live out the rest of her life as a recluse.

Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood Vivian’s grand, sprawling Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one …

Mexican Gothic meets Everything I Never Told You in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.

They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But silence can be deadly.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career and live out the rest of her life as a recluse.

Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood Vivian’s grand, sprawling Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement.

In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion. Amidst the grief and paranoia of the families’ unhappy reunion, Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, only to realize they are being haunted by something much more sinister and vengeful than their regrets. After so many years of silence, will the families finally confront the painful truth about the last fateful summer they spent in the house, or will they cling to their secrets until it’s too late?

Told in dual timelines, spanning three generations, and brimming with romance, betrayal, ambition and sacrifice, The Manor of Dreams is a thrilling family gothic that examines the true cost of the American dream—and what happens when the roots we set down in this country turn to rot.

3 editions

Yam Cake reviewed The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li

天啊, I wish they'd make this into a TV series.

5 stars

One night, when I was dealing with a bout of insomnia, I went through about 1/3 of the book. The next morning, I woke up hearing the soundtrack of The Haunting of Bly Manor in my head. No doubt this book will get score many comparisons to Bly Manor or Hill House, for its central theme: Family secrets contained within a crumbling mansion.

But The Manor of Dreams isn't just about toxic family secrets that can spread like weeds and crush you under its weight. It's also about tight-lipped Chinese family dynamics, Hollywood's indifference to the stories of people who look like Vivian Yin, railroads built with blood and sweat, abusive relationships and how family can go from being inseparable to willfully estranged. Christina Li deftly weaves together a terrifying tapestry of fate, without it feeling contrived or trite. One's fate is not the work of some mysterious curse …

One night, when I was dealing with a bout of insomnia, I went through about 1/3 of the book. The next morning, I woke up hearing the soundtrack of The Haunting of Bly Manor in my head. No doubt this book will get score many comparisons to Bly Manor or Hill House, for its central theme: Family secrets contained within a crumbling mansion.

But The Manor of Dreams isn't just about toxic family secrets that can spread like weeds and crush you under its weight. It's also about tight-lipped Chinese family dynamics, Hollywood's indifference to the stories of people who look like Vivian Yin, railroads built with blood and sweat, abusive relationships and how family can go from being inseparable to willfully estranged. Christina Li deftly weaves together a terrifying tapestry of fate, without it feeling contrived or trite. One's fate is not the work of some mysterious curse or necessarily preordained, unless you've made one bad choice that leads to another, with consequences that just keep on snowballing. So, you know, go have that difficult conversation or whatever, before the only choice you have is to persist in this doomed world you have created, to quote a certain video game series.

If you like spooky stories and have been itching for a tale with Chinese and queer elements, don't miss out on this one. I promise you're going to feel right at home.