In this riveting tale about the secrets and betrayals that can accompany exorbitant wealth, two sisters from a Chinese-Indonesian family grapple with the past after one of them poisons their entire family.
Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, eminent, and sometimes deceitful family, they’ve relied on each other for support and confidence. But now Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole clan.
As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this shocking and brutal act. Was it their aunt’s mysterious death at sea? Estella’s unhappy marriage to a dangerously brutish man? Or were the shifting loyalties and unspoken resentments at the heart of their opulent world too much to bear? Can Gwendolyn, at last, confront the carefully buried mysteries in their family’s past and the truth about who she and her sister really are?
Traveling from the luxurious world of the rich and powerful in Indonesia to the most spectacular shows at Paris Fashion Week, from the sunny coasts of California to the melting pot of Melbourne’s university scene, The Majesties is a haunting and deeply evocative novel about the dark secrets that can build a family empire—and also bring it crashing down.
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“Nancy Wu uses an arch, knowing tone to narrate this family saga steeped in drama and danger…Keeping us hanging onto every word, Wu makes us eager to find out what happens next. Well paced by an expert narrator, this roller-coaster story intrigues and entertains.”
— AudioFile
“A sharply realized page-turner with a brilliant twist, written with an effortless command of pace and suspense.”
— Sydney Morning Herald“A sobering look at the dark side of extreme wealth among Chinese families in Indonesia…Tsao’s depiction of domestic abuse is powerful.”
— Kirkus ReviewsBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Tiffany Tsao was born in San Diego, California, and lived in Singapore and Indonesia through her childhood and young adulthood. A graduate of Wellesley College and the University of California Berkeley, where she earned a PhD in English, she has taught and researched literature at Berkeley, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds an affiliation with the Indonesian Studies Department at the University of Sydney. Her works include short fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and translations and have been published in Transnational Literature, Asymptote, Mascara Literary Review, LONTAR, Comparative Literature,Literature and Theology, and the anthology Contemporary Asian Australian Poets. Tsao currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and son.
Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004, winning three AudioFile Earphones Awards. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world—from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Her credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hope & Faith, All My Children, Made for Each Other, and the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River.