The Fourth Daughter: A Novel

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In Taiwan, the bond between grandmother and granddaughter opens up a healing world for them both in an inspiring family saga about the comfort of food, untold histories, and indomitable mother love.

Chef Liv Kuo’s star is on the rise…until a traumatic incident leaves her emotionally unable to venture outside her Manhattan apartment. But an unexpected reason to break free comes from Ah-Ma, Liv’s beloved grandmother in Taiwan. Ah-Ma needs Liv’s help in finding her fourth daughter, taken from her when the girl was an infant. After all these years, it seems impossible. It’s also a mystery: Ah-Ma’s fourth daughter is an aunt Liv never even knew existed.

After landing in Taiwan, Liv hears the heartbreaking story of her grandmother’s plight in a country once under martial law, of choices made for her, and of the hopeful search for a lost girl that has endured for more than sixty years. Like the enriching food and traditions that bind Liv and Ah-Ma, their journey for answers brings them together.

And it’s a quest that turns up both a precious old cookbook and a tale of fatal betrayal that shakes everything Liv believed about her family—revelations that could also give her the courage to face the trauma she left behind.

From the Publisher

Bestselling author Lyn Liao Butler is back with her latest novel, told in two intertwining timelines between present-day and 1950s Taiwan. I was moved to tears watching the beautiful relationship between Liv and her grandmother grow through their search for the child that had been given away by her grandfather decades before. Also, readers: be prepared for a growling belly as the two bond through family recipes! You’ll definitely finish this book with an empty box of tissues and a full shopping list by your side.—Pippa White, Editor

About the Author

Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of thrillers, upmarket fiction, and rom-coms. Her thriller, Someone Else’s Life, was an Amazon bestseller, and her second book, Red Thread of Fate, was a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards for 2023. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer and is still a fitness and yoga instructor. She and her family, including two rescue dogs and a myriad of foster animals, divide their time between New York and Kauai. For more information, visit www.lynliaobutler.com.