The Manor of Dreams

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Pub Date May 06 2025 | Archive Date Mar 11 2025
Simon & Schuster Canada | Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Description

“A true modern classic. The Manor of Dreams is beautiful, eerie, and woven with enough intrigue to hold all who enter captive. Christina Li remains unmatched in breathing characters to life—and the hauntings thereafter.” —Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of Immortal Longings

Mexican Gothic meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career to live out the rest of her life as a recluse.

Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will, and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood home: Vivian’s grand, sprawling, Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement.

In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion. As Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, disturbing visions and bizarre behaviors start to take hold of everyone in the house, forcing them to realize they are being haunted by something far more sinister and vengeful than their regrets. After so many years of silence, will the families finally confront the painful truth behind the house’s origins and the last, tragic summer they spent there—or will they cling to their secrets until it’s too late?

Told in dual timelines, spanning three generations, and brimming with romance, betrayal, ambition, and sacrifice, The Manor of Dreams is a thrilling family gothic that examines the true cost of the American Dream—and what happens when the roots we set down in this country turn to rot.
“A true modern classic. The Manor of Dreams is beautiful, eerie, and woven with enough intrigue to hold all who enter captive. Christina Li remains unmatched in breathing characters to life—and the...

Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781668051740
PRICE CA$14.99 (CAD)
PAGES 352

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Average rating from 2 members


Featured Reviews

The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li is a gothic story about the price of fame and the haunting secrets of a Chinese American family whose lives become entangled in a dark history that has threatened their family for generations.

The story follows Vivian Yin, the first Chinese American actress to win an Oscar and her tragic life as a once famous star, wife, and mother only to lose everything in the end, including her life. Her mysterious death and strange house in California beckons her family and friends back to the manor where unnatural things begin to occur. Soon, the family realizes that they have stepped back into a nightmare, built on the dreams of Vivian Yin and her troubled life.

The Manor of Dreams is a haunting story about family secrets and the immigrant experience that pulled me into its pages. It is very much a Gothic with a psychological horror aspect to it, with the explanations of what was really gone, never fully resolved. The juxtapositions between Hollywood glamour and Chinese culture was interesting and helped to highlight the challenges and bravery of Vivian Yin as she navigated the dark world of the entertainment industry. The story was a little slow paced at times but it helped to increase the tension and suspense, with the mystery deepening the further the story went along.

If you like Gothic stories involving generational trauma, I would recommend The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li.

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