The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris

 The Girls of Good Fortune explores the complexity of family and identity set in the era troubled with anti-Chinese sentiment.

Portland, end of 19th century. Celia’s family escaped China for America, a place advertised as the Golden Mountain, only to face a new set of hardship. As Celia’s father works at a coal mine, she works as a maid for mayor’s family, where she falls in love with the mayor’s son. It’s a challenging situation for both of them, and they’d have to move to Washington Territory for their marriage to be legal.

The story begins with a romance which has dire consequences for Celia. It is further intertwined with her abduction and stark reality for Chinese immigrants, and scary underground world of the Portland’s Shanghai Tunnels.

The story tangles between two timelines. It takes time to make sense and get connected with the present timeline, which is abduction. Once, present timeline makes more sense, then the story becomes more engrossing in its entirety.

Celia, half-Chinese, had to learn how to adapt to prejudice. She is a strong character who quickly learns resilience and finds her ways out of difficult situations. A protagonist that searches every fiber within her to find the strength to fight for what she believes in.

Synopsis:

"Portland, 1888. Amid the subterranean labyrinth of the notorious Shanghai Tunnels, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised. Celia soon realizes she's a "shanghaied" victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor, leaving behind those she loves most. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival—being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment—she fears that far more than her own fate lay at stake. 

 As she pieces together the twisting path that led to her abduction, from serving as a maid for the family of a dubious mayor to becoming entwined in the case of a goldminers' massacre, revelations emerge of a child left in peril. Desperate, Celia must find a way to escape and return to a place where unearthed secrets can prove even more deadly than the dark recesses of Chinatown."

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Published in May 2025