
Homeseeking
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Narrated by:
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Katharine Chin
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Kenneth Lee
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By:
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Karissa Chen
About this listen
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
“Sweeping and epic…An impactful love story, told against the backdrop of historical events…One of the best debut novels of this century.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Like any tried-and-true epic (think “Pachinko” or “The Joy Luck Club”… Homeseeking is just a genuine pleasure to read.”—San Francisco Chronicle
A single choice can define an entire life.
Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years.
To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.
Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.
Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts.
At once epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and loyalty, and of the power of love to endure beyond distance, beyond time.
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF that contains notes from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Karissa Chen (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A GMA Book Club Pick
A December Book of the Month Pick
A Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick
A Vogue Best Book of the Year
A People Most Anticipated Book of the Year
A BookBub Best Book of Winter
A Reader’s Digest Most Anticipated Book of the Year
A Chicago Review of Books Must Read Book
“Those waiting to read one of the best books of 2025 don’t have to wait long. Homeseeking, by Karissa Chen, has arrived on the scene early. … One of the best debut novels of this century.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Fans of historical fiction will want to pick up this exceptional novel immediately.” —Los Angeles Times
"This generational, inter-continental love story is a testament to the enduring power of finding your home." —Harper’s Bazaar
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Story
On a bright spring afternoon, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes off the clothesline, she straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe—and that this time, when she leaves, she must stay away. On the surface, she has a perfect life: her husband, Ryan, is a good provider, sometimes even kind and attentive, from a nice Irish family, and they have another baby on the way.
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Jarring narration at times
- By Anonymous User on 04-04-25
By: Roisín O'Donnell
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Mothers and Sons
- A Novel
- By: Adam Haslett
- Narrated by: Andrew Gibson, Janet Metzger
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built.
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Good multiple narrators. Tiresome characters.
- By CoastalReader on 02-20-25
By: Adam Haslett
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Blob
- A Love Story
- By: Maggie Su
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Aimless after getting dumped by her boyfriend and dropping out of college, Vi works at the front desk of a hotel where she greets guests, refills cucumber water samovars, and tries to evade her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. Little does Vi know her life is about to be permanently transformed when she agrees to a night out with Rachel. In the alley outside the bar, Vi discovers a strange blob—a small living creature with beady black eyes.
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really different
- By Jeannie Bench on 02-24-25
By: Maggie Su
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The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus
- A Novel
- By: Emma Knight
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time . . .
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Terrible read terrible slow story. Shows it’s the first novel
- By Marc Nasoff on 03-04-25
By: Emma Knight
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The Heart of Winter
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Evison
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke were never meant to be together—at least if you ask Ruth. Yet their catastrophic blind date in college evolved into a seventy-year marriage and a life on a farm on Bainbridge Island with their hens and beloved Labrador, Megs. Through the years, the Winters have fallen in and out of lockstep, and from their haunting losses and guarded secrets, a dependable partnership has been forged.
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Stereotypical characters, yawn
- By yo on 02-14-25
By: Jonathan Evison
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People of Means
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Johnson
- Narrated by: Nancy Johnson, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the fall of 1959, Freda Gilroy arrives on the campus of Fisk University full of hope, carrying a suitcase and the voice of her father telling her she’s part of a family legacy of greatness. Soon, the ugliness of the Jim Crow South intrudes, and she’s thrust into a movement for social change. Freda is reluctant to get involved, torn between a soon-to-be doctor her parents approve of and an audacious young man willing to risk it all in the name of justice.
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Beautifully Told
- By Dr. Judy A. Alston on 02-19-25
By: Nancy Johnson
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The Lotus Shoes
- By: Jane Yang
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho, Katharine Chin
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
1800s China. Tightly bound feet, or "golden lilies," are the mark of an honorable woman, eclipsing beauty, a rich dowry and even bloodline in the marriage stakes. When Little Flower is sold as a maidservant—a muizai—to Linjing, a daughter of the prominent Fong family, she clings to the hope that one day her golden lilies will lead her out of slavery. Not only does Little Flower have bound feet, uncommon for a muizai, but she is extraordinarily gifted at embroidery, a skill associated with the highest class of a lady.
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As an Asian American…wow!
- By Jessica R. on 04-24-25
By: Jane Yang
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Dream State
- A Novel
- By: Eric Puchner
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a medical student with a brilliant future. Charlie asks Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate, though Cece can’t imagine anyone less appropriate for the task; Garrett doesn’t believe in love, much less marriage. But as she spends time with Garrett, and his gruff mask slips, her long-held expectations for her life with Charlie begin to crumble, her feelings for Garrett—haunted by a tragic event from his past—become impossible to bury.
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An Enthralling Listen
- By Regina on 02-20-25
By: Eric Puchner
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The Family Recipe
- A Novel
- By: Carolyn Huynh
- Narrated by: Vyvy Nguyen, David Lee Huynh
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. No one has heard from his wife, Evelyn, in two decades. She abandoned the family without a trace, and clearly doesn’t want anything to do with Duc, the business, or their kids. But the money has to go to someone. With the help of the shady family lawyer, Duc informs his five estranged adult children that to receive their inheritance, his four daughters must revitalize run-down shops in old-school Little Saigon locations across America: Houston, San Jose, New Orleans, and Philadelphia.
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Could have been something
- By Kraig Odabashian on 06-11-25
By: Carolyn Huynh
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Nobody's Empire
- A Novel
- By: Stuart Murdoch
- Narrated by: Stuart Murdoch
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It’s the early 1990s in Glasgow, Scotland, and Stephen has emerged from a lengthy hospital stay. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood disease which has robbed him of any prospects of work, friends, or independent living, he moves slowly toward new goals and meets others like him, including Richard, a friend from school, and Carrie, a young woman bedridden for five years. Feeling isolated and alone, they form their own support group, and try to get by with as little money and pain as possible.
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A novel of self discovery and hope
- By Aloha Boston on 04-30-25
By: Stuart Murdoch
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The Edge of Water
- By: Olufunke Grace Bankole
- Narrated by: Nicole Cash
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In Ibadan, Nigeria, a mother receives a divination that foretells danger for her daughter in America. In spite of this warning, she allows her to forge her own path, and Amina arrives in New Orleans filled with hope. But just as Amina begins to find her way, a hurricane threatens to destroy the city, upending everything she’d dreamed of and the lives of all she holds dear. Years later, her daughter is left with questions about the mother she barely knew, and the family she has yet to discover in Nigeria.
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Outstanding performance!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-04-25
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Show Don't Tell
- Stories
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Curtis Sittenfeld, George Newbern, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.
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Always a pleasure
- By joshua simons on 03-21-25
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The Matchmaker
- A Novel
- By: Aisha Saeed
- Narrated by: Tiya Sircar
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Business has never been better for Nura Khan, a third-generation matchmaker in Atlanta. Her exclusive clientele benefits from her impeccable track record. And while a single thirty-one-year-old matchmaker would normally raise some perfectly threaded eyebrows in the community, Nura’s childhood best friend, Azar, is willing to double as her pretend fiancé at her clients’ weddings—even though Nura’s feelings for him might not be so pretend.
By: Aisha Saeed
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The Riveter
- A Novel
- By: Jack Wang
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Vancouver, 1942. Josiah Chang arrives in the bustling city ready to make a new life for himself. The Second World War is in full swing, and Josiah, like so many Canadians, wants to prove his loyalty by serving his country. But Chinese Canadians are barred from joining the army out of fear they might expect citizenship in return. So, Josiah heads to the shipyard where he finds work as a riveter, fastening together the ribs and steel plates of Victory ships. One night, Josiah spots Poppy singing at a navy club. Despite their different backgrounds, they fall for each other instantly.
By: Jack Wang
What a beautiful story!
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Great Book!
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Surprisingly good
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How the story was told
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Vivid characters, uniquely delivered histories
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Historical fiction
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Wonderful story
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Wonderful character development an incredibly detailed history
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The most beautiful love story I’ve read in a long time
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Masterful and Beautiful
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