February Flowers

Seventeen-year-old Ming and twenty-four-year-old Yan have very little in common: Ming, innocent and preoccupied, lives in a world of books, music and imagination; Yan, by contrast, is sexy and cynical, beautiful and wild, and not afraid to use her looks to get what she wants from the many men in her life. Yet opposites attract -- Ming is drawn to Yan's free spirit, while Yan yearns for the kind of stability Ming's seriousness can offer -- and when the two girls meet, they soon become best friends. Their relationship is brief, almost accidental, but intense, and it changes Ming's world forever.

'An original and unforgettable story, brimming with passion, vitality and hope' Xinran

'A first novel whose psychic terrain is the hinterland between girlhood and womanhood, lust and love, tradition and progress . . . Subtle and deftly paced, it's ultimately a story about sheer awakening' Observer

'February Flowers begins as a tale of friendship between a seventeen year-old girl and her older classmate, but the core strength of the book is the ease with which it enters the past as it was lived, in real-time and without the props of hindsight' Financial Times