Peony in Love is narrated by the hungry ghost who had been a 16-year-old girl nicknamed Peony. She was the cloistered daughter of a wealthy Chinese family during the 17th century when the Ming Dynasty was crumbling under the Manchu invasion. Peony got her father's permission to see the epic opera "The Peony Pavilion" as long as she stays behind a screen. Chinese women were not to be seen in public, and Peony's father had already arranged a marriage for her. Peering through the screen at the opera, Peony spies a handsome poet and later slips out of her house to meet him. Desperate for his love and already betrothed to an unknown man, Peony takes a cue from the opera and decides to starve herself to death, only to discover it was all unnecessary. Lisa See's second novel (following
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) has received mostly positive reviews with the Washington Post saying, "This reader felt, from time to time, almost literally transported and commends the willing suspension of Western disbelief. There's much here to be savored and a great deal to be learned."
