This novel is about women supporting women. The first part focuses on a mother with depression and her journey toward healing. The later part follows her daughter, a criminal police officer, as she works to help more people through her cases.
The day my mom was left with nothing after her divorce, I withdrew from the special forces selection. When my superior asked why, I said, “My mom has depression. I’m going to become a criminal police officer.”
I took her to hide in the mountains of Sichuan, emptied the gold bars and property deeds my scumbag father had hidden in the basement, and used the space jade pendant Grandpa left behind to take all the evidence with us. The owner of the guesthouse was a retired special forces ace, and the way he looked at my mom grew more and more unusual. At first, he was only helping because someone had asked him to. Later, when her depression flared up, he personally pulled her out of the darkness. My mom says he’s just a landlord looking after his tenant. But what landlord holds her while she cries and says, “I’ll be with you for the rest of your life”?
I joined the criminal police team with a fox who can tell when people are lying. The rich young master who just joined the major crimes unit is a wealthy second-generation heir. He’s older than me, yet follows me around every day calling me “Sister Lin.” My colleagues say his intentions are suspect. He says he’s here to solve cases, but he’s clearly much more enthusiastic about buying me milk tea than doing his job.
We take in women driven to desperation by domestic abuse, help them report it to the police, write their complaints, and find lawyers. They say this place feels like a shelter. I say it isn’t. It’s a base for fighting back.
My scumbag father thinks leaving with nothing is the end of it? The assets he moved, the properties he hid, the pink diamond necklace he stole from my mom’s safe: I’ll get every last thing back for her.
Dual mother-daughter romance arcs
Mother Song Wanqing and Jiang Yanzhou (businesswoman and retired special forces soldier)
Daughter Lin Zhao and Gu Yu'an (criminal police officer/heiress and sweet, clingy rich kid)
I like this style, the writing is very real, the repression of depression, and the daughter's defense of her mother so far, it's really a little cotton-padded jacket. The mother's emotional development is fast and cryptic, and the pull between the two middle-aged people is a bit frustrating.
It's a pretty good novel and the tweet text is simple 😄