Lisa See is the author of six previous novels, including the critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (which was nominated for an Edgar Award), The Interior, and Dragon Bones. She is also the author of the widely acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. She lives in Los Angeles.

In 1867, Lisa See's great-great-grandfather left China in search of riches on the 'Gold Mountain', the Chinese name for the promised land of America. His son Fong See later built a mercantile empire and married a Caucasian woman, in spite of laws that prohibited unions between the races. Through sheer endeavour and entrepreneurial genius he became one of the most successful Chinese men in the country. Over the decades, each generation of the See family strived to grasp their dreams, realise their ambitions and overcome their disappointments and sorrows.