The Phoenix Pencil Company

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In this dazzling debut novel of love and secret histories, a young woman unearths the story of a lost Shanghai pencil company and a hidden family ability which holds the power to mend lost connections and will alter the path of her life forever.Wildly inventive Allison King is a talent to watch LIZ MOORE, author of The God of the Woods

Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-confessed recluse, she finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. Now in their nineties, Monica worries about themespecially her grandmother Yun whose memory has begun to fade.

Monica has become intent on tracking down the long-lost cousin Meng that her grandmother was separated from back in China before its too late. In her search, Monica connects with a young woman archivist who presents her with a single pencil that holds a clue to a hidden family history. Through it Monica comes to learn of her grandmothers years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII raged outside their door, Yun and Meng, came into a unique power the women in their family possess: the ability to reclaim stories from the pencils they were written with. But when government officials uncover their secret ability, they are both forced into a life of espionage, betraying other peoples stories to survive. These shocking discoveries set Monica on a path that will change all their lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

At once a sweeping cross-generational family epic and an uplifting story with deep emotional resonance, Allison Kings brilliantly inventive debut novel pushes us to question how well we really know our own stories and the many beguiling ways they connect our lives.

Reviews

I loved this wildly inventive novel and its exploration of how technology and humanity can intersect in deeply meaningful ways. Allison King is a talent to watch Liz Moore, author of The God of the Woods

'China, America, generations, and stories connect with literal magic in this suspenseful debut. Marvelous!' Gish Jen, award-winning author of The Resisters

'A beautiful ode to the warmth of family connection, the power of memory, and the magic of the written word' Ray Nayler, award-winning author of The Mountain in the Sea

Author Bio

Allison King is an Asian American writer and software engineer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In technology, her work has ranged from semiconductors to platforms for community conversations to data privacy. Her short stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and LeVar Burton Reads, among others. She is a 2023 Reese Witherspoons Book Club LitUp fellow. The Phoenix Pencil Company is her first novel.