My Other Heart: A Read with Jenna Pick

A mother's missing child, a search for identity, and ever-changing notions of "home" - class and race intersect with belonging in this stunning debut novel of mothers, daughters and best friends

In June 2000, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.

Seventeen years later, two best friends graduate from high school in the WASP-y town of Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. Kit is half Japanese, half American, and interracially adopted by white well-to-do parents. Sabrina is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant single mother who brandishes strict household rules to hide her own secrets.

During that last summer before college, Kit travels to Tokyo, determined to uncover her Japanese identity. Her dizzying weeks in Tokyo offer her a critical distance from everything she holds dear--and a taste of first love that refines her understanding of what it means to belong.

Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment quickly subsides, however, as her bold, uncompromising boss becomes a mentor, prompting Sabrina to ask questions she's avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead to renew her search in the country where she and her daughter were parted.

When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face at the end of this transformative summer, they will confront the people they truly are, dismantling their own assumptions about belonging and the importance of blood ties.

Emma Nanami Strenner is British Japanese and studied Modern Chinese studies at the University of Leeds. She has worked as a journalist for almost twenty years, as a section editor for titles including Vogue, Elle and Stylist. She spent most of her life living abroad in Japan, Vietnam, Australia, China and the US. This is her debut novel.