Karen Shepard's captivating debut novel captures the reunion of photographer Celine Arneaux, a French-Chinese émigré, her disaffected Asian-American daughter, Sumin, and granddaughter, Cameron, at a family cabin in Virginia. The cabin is where, a decade earlier, Celine had photographed Cameron for a famous series of child portraits. Joining them for a week in the country on the occasion of Celine's 75th birthday are two outsiders: Sumin's lover Grady, a journalist who is writing a profile of Celine; and Alice, an appealing and poised six-year-old Chinese girl temporarily entrusted to Cameron.

Alice, whose real mother has been forced to return to China, provides ample opportunity for the adults to show their better side. But the need to decide Alice's future also unleashes a ruthlessness that has marked the family's history since the Cultural Revolution, and forces the exposure of a long-buried secret. In a stark setting, where they are faced with no one but themselves-their biggest obstacle and best hope for making peace with one another-mothers and daughters achieve a kind of understanding and a new respect for one another.

With wonderful emotional acuity, artistry and suspense, Shepard weaves a compelling tale of custody, collaboration and the ferocity with which we sometimes sacrifice loved ones to gain our own ends.