Jane Lo -

Jane Lo is a Chinese-Canadian writer and English teacher. Shortly after Lo was born in Hong Kong, her family moved to Vancouver. In university she studied Biblical Hebrew and English Literature and loved both: she pursued further studies in one (Hebrew) and a career teaching the other (English). Over the years she has worked and studied in both cities, but she is now happily settled in Hong Kong, and lives with her husband, their two sweet but boisterous children, and their extremely shy leopard gecko, Snowy. Reading and writing are her passions. ALL I EVER WANTED is her first novel.

Norah, a vivacious ESL teacher in Hong Kong, deftly straddles two worlds: she is Chinese, but sees life through a western lens because of her upbringing. These two worlds collide when she meets sweet, chivalrous Ben and marries him against her parents’ wishes. Suddenly a wife and daughter-in-law in a traditional Chinese household, Norah is torn between speaking Chinese and English, between being Ben’s wife and her own person, and between giving in to her mother-in-law’s senseless demands and standing up for herself and the way she wants to raise their baby, Joey. Ben, meanwhile, finds himself running in circles in an attempt to keep the peace, but to no avail: despite his best efforts, his mother continues to be critical and disapproving, and his wife quietly discontented. But when Ben’s mother unwittingly puts baby Joey’s life in danger, Norah and Ben realize they cannot go on like this. How much are they willing to give up for their happily ever after—or is a happy ending firmly out of reach for a couple like them?

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Jane Lo’s debut novel All I Ever Wanted is a heartfelt Hong Kong love story. She writes with lyrical precision and finely observed emotions of the private lives of ordinary people with candor, wit and vision. They’re your neighbors, your classmates, your colleagues and friends, all the men and women who daily rush through the streets of the city. Whose lives can too often be swallowed up by the challenges of survival for those who dare to dream. Norah and Ben are the quintessential young Hong Kong couple: they live with his single mother in the flat she raised him in with little privacy; Norah juggles part time work as an ESL language teacher while mothering their baby boy who has seriously itchy skin under the critical eye of her tough-as-steel nai nai; Ben works hard as a commercial photographer to support his family, and still give half his salary to his mother like a good filial son, but is afraid he doesn’t “deserve” his university-and-international-school educated wife with parents in Vancouver, he being just a smart local boy who only wants to do the right thing. They’re seriously stressed out, but seriously in love. Will they succeed or will the pressures of the city ultimately be too much to bear? Read this delightful novel slowly to savor all the lovely details Lo captures of a city that harbors so many disappointments and dreams. This is truly a delightful debut and we look forward to more from this talented new writer.
Xu Xi, author of Monkey in Residence and Other Speculations

Jane Lo is a wonderful writer, and she has created some vivid and endearing characters in her new book All I Ever Wanted.
A.J. Jacobs, author of The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life

Lo's novel expertly examines the collision between tradition and modernity, familial duty and romance, in a thoroughly enjoyable novel. It recalls such novels as Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap in its ability to reveal the deep motivations of people via the quotidian events that define our lives.
Patrick Holland, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University and author of The Mary Smokes Boys

Jane Lo has written the book many of us wish we'd had years ago, no matter our culture or background. Even better, her book comes with an endearing Hong Kong backdrop that shows the beauty and struggles of people who believe that love truly conquers all.
Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife

All I Ever Wanted is an engaging novel about the challenges of new marriage and parenting across cultural divides. Its many local references will enlighten newcomers to Hong Kong and delight natives with its mentions of familiar places and the fissures between generations, social classes, languages, and backgrounds. Ultimately, readers will learn that familial love is never simple and that a Chinese mother-in-law can be a formidable opponent when an only son and grandson are at stake.
Heather Diamond, author of Rabbit in the Moon

All I Ever Wanted explores the rich territory of parenthood -- the illness of children, the social isolation, and the struggle with mother in laws -- set against the backdrop of Hong Kong. It's quietly beautiful and deserves your attention.
John Matthew Fox, author of The Linchpin Writer

All I Ever Wanted is a rare and genuine depiction of early parenthood. There is joy and tenderness here, as well as anxiety-inducing in-laws, health issues, and the pressure of earning one's keep in a major city. After reading it I found myself missing the characters that inhabit this novel, I re-read passages of it, just to spend more time with them.
Caitlin Thomson, author of Incident Reports

In All I Ever Wanted, Lo folds faces of doubt into small red envelopes and turns them into luck. If love can be a mother or a partner, can it also be the self? How much of our language is our own, and which parts have we learned in order to not become swallowed up by the world's terrifying silence? Whether in Hong Kong waiting rooms, cabs or classrooms or childhood homes, Lo is there to soothe our flaking, reddened skin with her truth — that we belong somewhere much more beautiful than the hells we once imagined.
Daisuke Shen, author of Funeral

A poignant, incisive exploration of motherhood, family, and the challenges of navigating a marriage that spans class and cultural differences. This thoughtful, moving novel poses a universal question: what happens when you get all you ever wanted, yet realize that to keep it, you'll have to find the courage to make choices you never dreamed of?
Emily Colin, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Thief

I ring the bell and wait at the door alone today. Tung said he was feeling achy and needed to lie down. That sounds grand, really, what with this humidity. And yet I cannot bring myself to stay away. Our grandson doesn’t care for us, but he knows us. If we do not come, who knows how soon it will be before he forgets us completely and regards us as strangers? And so I come.
From 'Maa Maa' (2015) | Click here to read the rest of the story on the Fairlight Shorts website

All week Eve hoped for the typhoon. She checked her Apple watch religiously, keeping tabs on the cyclone tracker between lessons and sometimes even during them, when her students’ heads were bent over their grammar exercises and compositions.
From 'Hilda' (2021) | Click here to read the rest of the story on the Lovereading website

Authors Publish: My Path to Publication

2023-04-20

I’ve always loved to write stories. Prior to 2020, I had written a few short stories and personal essays – and when I was in high school, had even written a long, meandering tale I liked to think of as a ‘novella’ – but it wasn’t until January 2020 that I really began to take my writing seriously. This was when I took my first novel writing course, and when I began writing every day. In some ways, it was an unlikely time for this to happen...

mrsjcheung@gmail.com
Twitter: @mrsjcheung

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