Petals From The Sky by Mingmei Yip

MingMei Yip writes a beautiful tale about a 30 yr old woman, Meng Ning who is torn between her love to be a Buddhist nun and Michael. Meng Ning joins a retreat to " test her karma to be a nun". When she pays her fee for the retreat, she is told that her $500 dollar bill is a fake. When she was in Paris, she had asked a friend to exchange her Hong Kong money in the black market. How could she have known it was fake? As she was trying to talk to the registration lady about her situation, a man asked if he could help. Meng Ning explains to him what happened and he pulls out his wallet and pays the lady the money. Meng Ning thanks him repeatedly and tells him she'll pay him back. His name is Michael Fuller and this is the starting of Meng Nings confusion.

The story doesn't slow down, it keeps moving with beautiful descriptions of China and the exotic life of Buddhist nuns. I loved every minute of it and am looking forward to reading her other books.

From Amazon:

When twenty-year-old Meng Ning declares that she wants to be a Buddhist nun, her mother is aghast. In her eyes, a nun's life means only deprivation - 'no freedom, no love, no meat'. But to Meng Ning, it means the chance to control her own destiny, and to live in an oasis of music, art, and poetry far from her parents' unhappy union. With an enigmatic nun known as Yi Kong, 'Depending on Emptiness', as her mentor, Meng Ning spends the next ten years studying abroad, disdaining men, and preparing to enter the nunnery. Then, a fire breaks out at her Buddhist retreat, and Meng Ning is carried to safety by Michael Fuller, a young American doctor. The unprecedented physical contact stirs her curiosity. And as their tentative friendship grows intimate, Meng Ning realizes she must choose between the sensual and the spiritual life.

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Her other books include:

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