Ruthie Ann Miles and Kimiko Glenn bring to life the mother/daughter voices that drive See's (China Dolls) new novel. Knowing her unborn child faces infanticide by the Akha, an ethnic minority in Yunnan, China, teenage Li-yan gives birth in a secret tea grove aided by her mother, a local midwife. She then determines to leave her daughter at an orphanage. When her circumstances change, she attempts to retrieve her daughter but learns that the child has been adopted and lives in America. Juxtaposed are the stories of the mother's rise as a dealer in the valuable pu'er tea trade and that of the daughter's coming to terms with being adopted and learning about her roots. VERDICT Recommended for those who want a taste of anthropology with their fiction and those who enjoy stories of mothers and daughters. ["See deftly confronts the changing role of minority women, majority-minority relations, East-West adoption, and the economy of tea in modern China": LJ 1/17 review of the Scribner hc.]—David Faucheux, Lafayette, LA

Miles reads most of the novel in the role of Li-yan, a girl of the Akha, one of China's 55 ethnic minority groups. She works well as a breathy 10-year-old, but doesn't seem to mature much in voice or tone as listeners follow Li-yan through her painful teen and beyond as she becomes an accomplished adult. The novel provides excellent detail about the Akhas' eked-out life in their mountain home, tea culture, gender roles, and folk beliefs in the pre- and post–Deng Xiaoping eras. It then contrasts all this sharply with the life of Li-yan's abandoned daughter, Haley, and other adopted Chinese girls spoiled by American parents. Several other actors—Alexandra Allwine, Jeremy Bobb, Kimiko Glenn, Joy Osmanski, Emily Walton, Erin Wilhelmi, and Gabra Zackman—lend their voices for these secondary characters. Their performances are all strong, and the variety helps listens stay attuned through a long story. A Scribner hardcover. (Mar.)