I once aspired to be a nun, and the story of my protagonist Meng Ning -- who wants to be a nun but falls in love with a young American doctor against the wish of her nun mentor - is based on my own life.

As the novel begins, Meng Ning is at a Buddhist retreat eager to cultivate good karma by meditating to suppress desire and develop wisdom and compassion. Instead, her sensuality is aroused for the first time when a fire breaks out and she is carried to safety by an American doctor attending the retreat. The unexpected intimacy with an exotic, handsome stranger forces Meng Ning to decide between a life of non-attachment and a life of passion.

My hope is that after reading the book, readers will be awakened to the realization that true love, like any other worthy pursuit in life, needs constant, tireless cultivation.

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I love to write about women, especially heroines who are on the verge of drastic transformation -- their courage, struggles, and triumphs.

In my debut novel Peach Blossom Pavilion, story of the last Chinese courtesan, or geisha, Precious Orchid is tricked into a prostitution house after her father is executed for a crime he had not committed. The novel relates her survival and ultimate triumph: how she escaped from the prostitution house, reunited with her long lost mother, avenged her father, finally finding true love and starting a new life in America.

My new novel Petals from the Sky has a quite different protagonist -- a would-be Buddhist nun who falls in love with a young American doctor against the wish of her nun mentor. Meng Ning, the protagonist in Petals from the Sky, faces the heartrending dilemma of having to choose between the spiritual life she's been cultivating for years and the sensuality she suddenly discovers. This poignant love story is inspired by my one-time aspiration to become a nun.

As the Chinese say that water, the softest element, is the most powerful. My heroines use their flexible, water-like yin nature to overcome whatever perils they face.