My upcoming historical romance, The Guest by the Inkstone, is listed below. Please add it to your reading list
Blurb:
[Ink-making businesswoman Chen Qingqian | Mountain wanderer Fu Yuan, not at all what he seems | Mutual push and pull | Pretending to have lost her memory | Reunited after years apart]
Qingwu Mountain in Songcheng has hidden century-old pine trees, a rare ingredient for making the finest pine-soot ink.
Chen Qingqian makes two trips to Songcheng. Publicly, it is for the Chen family's ink business, but deep down, she has another plan: she intends to pretend she has lost her memory, both to uncover who once tried to kill her and to sever all ties with the Chen family for good.
When they first met four years ago, Fu Yuan was a taciturn mountain wanderer.
Having lived deep in the mountains, far from the human world, he was quiet and aloof. His handwriting was even clumsy and ugly, prompting her to bluntly complain, “You're so dull. I don't like you.”
At the time, he merely lowered his eyes in silence, looking sorrowful.
Three years ago, she left Songcheng amid a landslide. A year later, she returned.
The man waiting for her was no longer the same silent sort he'd been back then.
The once-awkward mountain wanderer had shed all his sluggishness, becoming quick-witted and sharp-tongued.
He stopped her in the morning mist, his voice wrapped in the chill of the deep mountains. “I've told myself to let go a thousand times, but in the end, you've come back.”
Chen Qingqian is used to weighing the costs and benefits of everything. Thinking she had the whole situation under control, she planned to use her “amnesia” to shut out her feelings and deal with him only in silver. She never expected to miscalculate.
The transformed Fu Yuan takes advantage of their written contract to press her at every turn. Exposing her is not his goal: he wants to protect and cherish her.
[Little scene]
Looking at the strikingly similar handwriting on the contract, Chen Qingqian feigned confusion. “Your handwriting...does look a lot like mine.”
A smile glimmered in Fu Yuan's eyes as he said mildly, “Have you really forgotten? Three years ago, you complained that my handwriting was ugly.”
PS: This story is entirely fictional and has been fully drafted.
Upcoming novel
Blurb:
Mu Shutong is a moderately well-known painting and calligraphy restorer. To avoid trouble over a painting, she has become increasingly adept at lying. To make a living, she claims to have fled famine; to keep out of trouble, she conceals her true identity. Alone, she travels south to Mangshui City.
Then Ji Guiyao, the city's famous bone collector, appears before her.
The bone-collecting trade has been passed down in his family for generations. After more than a decade of gathering bones, he can recount the story behind every grave on the mountains outside the city with his eyes closed. He can also see right through every lie told by the living.
He falls in love with her at first sight. He brings neither gold nor sweet words. Instead, he sets a fragmentary painting he has just dug out of an ancient tomb on her worktable, pinpointing her disguise with unnerving precision. “The way you hold that brush doesn't look like the work of someone with mediocre skill...”
Mu Shutong spends every day guarding against him uncovering her identity, while he quietly plots to expose her lies.
Theme: Cherish the present.
