Counterfeit: A Novel

Description

Money can?t buy happiness? but it can buy a decent fake.

Ava Wong?has always played it safe.?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. But?beneath this?fa?ade,?Ava?s world is?crumbling: her marriage is?falling apart,?her?expensive?law?degree?hasn?t been used?in?years, and?her?toddler?s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.

Enter Winnie Fang, Ava?s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China,?who?abruptly?dropped out under mysterious circumstances.?Now, twenty years later,?Winnie is?looking to reconnect?with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava?once knew?has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange.?The secret to her success??Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme?that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury?handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to?help manage?her business?someone who?d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava.?But?when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes?once again,?Ava?is left to face the consequences.

Swift, surprising,?and?sharply?comic,?Counterfeit?is?a?stylish and feminist caper?with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.