(Crazy Rich Asian 1) Kevin Kwan-Crazy Rich Asians-Doubleday (2013)

(Crazy Rich Asian 1) Kevin Kwan-Crazy Rich Asians-Doubleday (2013);402 pages.

Prologue: The Cousins
LONDON, 1986
Nicholas Young slumped into the nearest seat in the hotel lobby, drained
from the sixteen-hour flight from Singapore, the train ride from
Heathrow Airport, and trudging through the rain-soaked streets. His
cousin Astrid Leong shivered stoically next to him, all because her
mother, Felicity, his dai gu cheh—or “big aunt” in Cantonese—said it was
a sin to take a taxi nine blocks and forced everyone to walk all the way
from Piccadilly Tube Station.
Anyone else happening upon the scene might have noticed an
unusually composed eight-year-old boy and an ethereal wisp of a girl
sitting quietly in a corner, but all Reginald Ormsby saw from his desk
overlooking the lobby were two little Chinese children staining the
damask settee with their sodden coats. And it only got worse from there.
Three Chinese women stood nearby, frantically blotting themselves dry
with tissues, while a teenager slid wildly across the lobby, his sneakers
leaving muddy tracks on the black-and-white checker board marble..

Happy reading, Cheers!