Three women arrive in nineteenth-century Los Angeles carrying very different dreams.

Dove wants to find love.
Petal wants freedom.
Moon wants justice.

In Daughters of the Sun and Moon, bestselling author Lisa See brings these women together in a moving story of migration, discrimination, survival and friendship.

Published by Scribner on June 9, 2026, the novel takes readers into the dusty and often violent Los Angeles of 1870. Behind the familiar story of America’s growth, See reveals another history—the lives of Chinese immigrants, especially women, whose experiences were often ignored or erased.

Three Women, Three Different Worlds

Dove is the bound-footed daughter of an imperial Chinese scholar. Sheltered and innocent, she travels to America for an arranged marriage to a much older merchant. She has been taught that beauty, obedience and marriage will secure her future.

Petal comes from a poor peasant family. Hunger forces her father to sell her so that he can buy rice seed. She is transported across the ocean to “Gold Mountain,” the Chinese name associated with the promise of wealth in America, only to discover that she has entered another world of exploitation.

Moon is the educated wife of a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. She speaks English and understands more of American society than the other women. Yet a childhood attempt at footbinding has left her with a limp, reducing her status in a culture that judges women through rigid expectations of beauty.

Their backgrounds separate them, but hardship brings them together.

A Friendship Born from Suffering

Dove, Petal and Moon enter a society that offers Chinese women little protection or respect. They face racism, male authority, poverty and the constant danger of violence.

However, this is not simply a novel about suffering.

It is about how friendship can become a form of resistance.

The women learn to support one another across differences of education, class and social position. Their friendship gives them the courage to speak, act and imagine lives beyond the roles assigned to them.

Lisa See has described women from very different social classes as being united by anti-Chinese discrimination and the restrictions placed upon them as women.

Why Should Sri Lankan Readers Be Interested?

Although the novel is set in California more than 150 years ago, its central questions will feel familiar to many Sri Lankan readers.

What happens when people leave their homeland believing that life abroad will be easier?

How do migrants preserve their culture while adapting to a new country?

What happens to women when poverty, family obligation and social tradition limit their choices?

Sri Lankan society also has a long history of migration. Generations of Sri Lankans have travelled abroad as workers, students, professionals and refugees. Some discover opportunity. Others face exploitation, loneliness, discrimination and the painful separation of families.

Petal’s journey is particularly relevant to readers familiar with stories of women who travel overseas because their families are experiencing financial hardship. Her experience reminds us that migration is not always a simple journey from poverty to prosperity. Sometimes people escape one form of vulnerability only to encounter another.

Moon’s knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine may also interest Sri Lankan readers. Her story opens a conversation about how Asian medical knowledge survives within Western societies and how educated women use cultural knowledge to earn respect and help their communities.

The Historical Event Behind the Story

The novel moves towards the violence known as the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles, when a mob murdered Chinese residents. The event has often remained outside popular versions of American history, but it forms an important background to the novel.

By placing women at the centre of this history, Lisa See does more than recreate a violent event. She asks readers to consider how ordinary people survive when the law, society and public opinion turn against them.

This gives the novel particular importance today, when debates about migration, race and belonging continue across the world.

Lisa See’s Gift as a Historical Novelist

Lisa See is admired for transforming historical research into emotionally engaging fiction. Rather than presenting history as a collection of dates and political events, she allows readers to experience it through intimate relationships, family pressures and personal choices.

Publishers Weekly praised her ability to combine history and fiction while bringing to life ordinary women who perform extraordinary acts of survival.

Readers familiar with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan will recognise See’s continuing interest in women’s secret worlds, emotional bonds and resistance to restrictive traditions. In that novel, she explored women communicating through nu shu, a writing system used by women in nineteenth-century China.

In Daughters of the Sun and Moon, friendship once again becomes a language of survival.

A Brief Biography of Lisa See

Lisa See is a bestselling American author known for historical novels exploring Chinese and Chinese American women’s lives.

Her major books include Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Shanghai Girls, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, The Island of Sea Women and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Her books have been published in 39 languages.

See also wrote On Gold Mountain, a history of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. This personal connection gives additional depth to her exploration of Chinese immigrant history.

A Novel About More Than Survival

At its heart, Daughters of the Sun and Moon is about three women attempting to claim ownership of their lives.

Dove searches for love in a world where marriage is arranged for her.

Petal searches for freedom after being treated as something that can be bought and sold.

Moon searches for justice in a society determined to silence her community.

Their stories remind us that history is not created only by rulers, soldiers or wealthy families. It is also created by women who endure, protect one another and refuse to disappear.

For Sri Lankan readers interested in historical fiction, migration, women’s lives and the hidden histories of Asia and the West, Daughters of the Sun and Moon offers a powerful and rewarding reading experience.

Explore Daughters of the Sun and Moon and more remarkable historical fiction at Lanka Books Online