Mr Chen's Emporium

Description

Perfect for book clubs, Mr Chen's Emporium is an enchanting historical love story, as East meets West in a sleepy NSW gold rush town. In 1872, seventeen-year-old Amy Duncan arrives in the Gold Rush town of Millbrooke, having spent the coach journey daydreaming about glittering pavilions and gilded steeples. What she finds is a dusty main street lined with ramshackle buildings. That is until she walks through the doors of Mr Chen's Emporium, a veritable Aladdin's cave, and her life changes forever. Though banned from the store by her dour clergyman father, Amy is entranced by its handsome owner, Charles Chen ...In present-day Millbrooke, recently widowed artist Angie Wallace has rented the Old Manse where Amy once lived. When her landlord produces an antique trunk containing Amy's intriguingly diverse keepsakes both Oriental and European Angie resolves to learn more about this mysterious girl from the past. And it's not long before the lives of two very different women, born a century apart, become connected in the most poignant and timeless ways. Deborah O'Brien's fiction debut is a mesmerising story of forbidden love and following one's heart ...

Deborah O'Brien is a teacher, visual artist and writer. Although she was born and educated in Sydney, her family hails from the gold districts of central-western NSW, where they settled during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Together with her husband, son and collie dog, she divides her time between the city and a country cottage, overlooking a creek frequented by platypus. It is her dream to own a small herd of alpacas. She has authored several non-fiction books, contributed articles to a variety of magazines and written short stories. Mr Chen's Emporium is her first novel. She is currently at work on its sequel, The Jade Widow.