Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See
Published by Scribner
Publication date: June 9, 2026
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Historical 
Bookshop
Three young Chinese women find themselves brought together in the earliest days of the city we know as Los Angeles. Petal, Moon, and Dove are the central characters in Lisa See’s Daughters of the Sun and Moon. In 1870, Dove arrives as the second wife of an older Chinese merchant, while Petal’s desperate family has sold her to be trafficked to America as a sex worker. Soon after their arrival, both meet Moon, the wife of the only Chinese doctor in town.
Just as Dove and Petal are torn from their homes, I was pulled into this story almost without realizing it. See immerses us in the lives of three young women with vastly different upbringings but little control over their own destinies. Dove is treated as a beautiful ornament, her bound feet prized by Chinese men and a curiosity to Westerners. Petal is a commodity to be used and discarded. Both are vulnerable to the whims and violence of the Chinese criminal networks that control much of their world. Moon, by contrast, has more agency, but none of the women can escape the isolation of being young, foreign, and far from home.
See brings late nineteenth-century California vividly to life, a place where virulent anti-Chinese racism compounded the dangers these women already faced. They don’t speak the language or understand the customs, and their upbringing has left them largely unprepared for life among men. In a place where violence often substitutes for law and Chinese women are especially vulnerable, friendship becomes a kind of refuge. Despite their differences, these three lonely women find their way to one another.
See unfolds their stories through events as they happen and Moon’s recollections decades later, using different narrative perspectives to reveal their distinct personalities. The historical details lend weight to their experiences without slowing the story. Despite the often dispiriting realities it depicts, Daughters of the Sun and Moon was one of those books I didn’t want to put down.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Scribner in exchange for an honest review.*
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