by Patti Lacy
This novel immediately throws two women with vastly different personalities and passions into the “fighting ring” over which one has the right to decide what’s best for a seventeen-year-old teenager. Did you find yourself rooting for Kai or Gloria? Why?
How does a Texas tornado provide the catalyst for emotional cleansing and a fresh start for Lily, Gloria, and Kai?
Trace the development of a heartfelt and genuine relationship between Gloria and her daughter. What do you think had created the disconnect that existed in the Powell household before Kai’s arrival?
Does this novel change your perception of the Chinese Cultural Revolution?
Though Reclaiming Lily centers on the actions of Gloria, Joy, and Kai, there are also three male characters: Andrew, David, and Paul. Discuss how the men promote or delay the women reaching their goals.
When to sacrifice for others and when to allow others to sacrifice for you recurs as a consistent theme. Discuss any application to your own life.
Do the novel’s settings—China, Fort Worth, and Boston—heighten your sensory experience in reading the novel? Give examples.
Compare and contrast the faith journeys of Kai, Gloria, and Joy.
Acknowledgments
Again, a village—Boston horticulturists and park rangers, prison officials, medical aides, Chinese nationalists, and interested readers—teamed to help this novelist. However, I couldn’t have written Reclaiming Lily without Trina Scott and Barry Slotky, medical doctors who went “on call” for a writer. Amy Koranek opened her heart and her files to demonstrate the roller-coaster ride called international adoption. Hossein and Shereen Rastigar fielded questions to help me understand PKD. Bless y’all!
Thanks to Dana of Barnes Jewish Hospital’s Transplant Unit (where Shereen received her brother’s kidney) for outlining donor-recipient procedures; J.R., a health-care professional, who outlined signs, causes, and pathophysiology of self-mutilation. Meteorologist Jeff Desnoyers, you weathered a storm of writer’s questions. Thank you.
Dave Warner, lieutenant at Normal Police Department and honorary novelist, you’ve cowritten three books! Nicole McCall, also of the NPD, you unraveled the complexities of station adjustments with passion and patience. Thank you!
Special thanks to soulmates Cammie Quinn and Sara Richardson, who pored over rough drafts and labored to help me find the voices of Kai, Gloria, and Joy.
Sue Wang, how can I thank someone who for seventeen days was tour guide, translator, banker, and fellow adventurer as China unfolded? Thank you, Mama and Papa Wang, for five blessed days in your courtyard, reading and sipping green tea; for five splendid nights, letting China breezes and the kang’s comfort soothe my weary bones.
Natasha Kern and David Long, thanks for believing in this story.
A thousand hugs to my family, who with the birth of dear Lily, put up with even more writer histrionics than usual. Love y’all—Alan, Thomas, Sarah, Josh, and Laura!
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for sharing your stories, especially those about China, your life, your love.
Thank you, Spirit, for whispering this story.
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