Counterfeit: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times BESTSELLER - the most exciting and addictive heist novel you’ll read this summer!

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When I wrote that short story in the first semester of my MFA program, I had no idea it would become a novel. We maintain that the designer handbag industry is a racket, but we do start asking ourselves who the racketeers are.

An added bonus if she is very good with her two year old son Henri who has the most spectacular of tantrums. Kirstin’s second novel Bury What We Cannot Take, published in 2018, is set against the backdrop of early Maoist China and follows a mother, father, brother and sister as they grapple with an agonizing decision and attempt to flee mainland China. This favor entangles Ava in Winnie’s illegal business involving high quality “superfake” designer handbags, which are being manufactured in China and moved into the United States. I have been reading about the verbal battle regarding exotic writing between Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie in the book Joseph Anton: A Memoir.My first impression after reading the synopsis for this book was that it sounded different and quite intriguing.

Her boss in China, a very powerful man, needs to have a life-saving surgery and would like to have it in the United States. She has received fellowships from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, and Djerassi, among others.As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. I was already having an enjoyable time when the author shifted gears somewhat and that just took the book to the next level. Eva’s toddler Henri had some sections that were really difficult to read about, as he has non-stop tantrums and must have been immensely colicky for his entire life. I am not sure if this is a stereotypical portrayal of the culture or Ava’s attempt to capitalise on white people’s stereotypes about her culture.

Now don’t get it twisted and think this is some Pulitzer caliber lifechanger of a story because it most assuredly is not. I started Kirsten Chen’s new novel Counterfeit on Friday and it was so engrossing that I nearly finished it in one sitting.Did you have a sense of the broader picture as you wrote the first version, or did it stay with you and grow after the fact? Ava is beginning to realise that things aren’t quite as easy as she was expecting, and before she knows it she finds herself involved with Winnie’s counterfeit handbag business. Once I left school, I realized I needed to create a whole new writing process that was much more internally motivated.