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Meng Ning fell into a well as a child and was rescued by Yi Kong, a wandering nun. Now in her thirties, Meng Ning is determined to emulate her rescuer and become a Buddhist nun herself. Warned off men by her mother after Meng Ning’s poet and dreamer of a father left them penniless, and devoted to the serene Yi Kong, she joins a retreat for new nuns and monks. It is quickly cut short by a disastrous fire, and Meng Ning is rescued once again, this time by the charming and intense American Michael Fuller. Michael intrigues Meng Ning, and soon she’s flying to New York to be by his side. But exposure to a whole new culture raises issues that cannot be ignored, and soon Meng Ning returns to Hong Kong to decide if becoming a nun is truly her destiny, or if, despite the warnings, Michael is her fate. Yip’s second novel is a serious, engaging story of faith, devotion, and the commingling of cultures. --Hilary Hatton

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When twenty-year-old Meng Ning declares that she wants to be a Buddhist nun, her mother is aghast. In her eyes, a nun's life means only deprivation - 'no freedom, no love, no meat'. But to Meng Ning, it means the chance to control her own destiny, and to live in an oasis of music, art, and poetry far from her parents' unhappy union. With an enigmatic nun known as Yi Kong, 'Depending on Emptiness', as her mentor, Meng Ning spends the next ten years studying abroad, disdaining men, and preparing to enter the nunnery. Then, a fire breaks out at her Buddhist retreat, and Meng Ning is carried to safety by Michael Fuller, a young American doctor. The unprecedented physical contact stirs her curiosity. And as their tentative friendship grows intimate, Meng Ning realizes she must choose between the sensual and the spiritual life.