Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

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In this episode of Pagecast, Kirstin Chen is in conversation with Jennifer Platt, the books editor at the Sunday Times.

About Kirstin:
Kirstin Chen is the New York Times best-selling author of three novels. Her latest, Counterfeit, is a Reese’s Book Club pick, a Roxane Gay book club pick, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. It has also been recommended by The Washington Post, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Oprah Daily, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Parade, and more. Translation rights have sold in seven languages and television rights have been optioned by Sony Pictures. Her previous two novels are Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.

She has received fellowships and awards from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Toji Cultural Foundation, and the National Arts Council of Singapore. Her writing has appeared in The Cut, Real Simple, Literary Hub, Writer’s Digest, Zyzzyva, and the Best New Singaporean Short Stories. She holds an MFA from Emerson College and a BA from Stanford University. Born and raised in Singapore, she lives in New York City.

About the book:
Meet Ava: rule-abiding lawyer who has ticked all of life’s boxes. She is married to a successful surgeon and has just taken an indefinite career break to raise her adorable toddler. A picture-perfect life.

Meet Winnie: Ava’s old college roommate. Once awkward, quiet and apparently academically challenged, she left Stanford in a shroud of scandal. But now, she is charismatic, wealthy and has returned to town dripping in designer accessories. An actual perfect life.

When the two women bump into one another at a local coffee shop, it seems like fate has intervened: Winnie’s new-found success is courtesy of a shady business and she needs a favour, but what starts as one favour turns into two, then three.
12 Sep 2022 English South Africa Books · Society & Culture

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