Author/Uploaded by Lauren Kung Jessen
Table of Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20&#...
Table of Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Acknowledgments Discover More Reading Group Guide About the Author Praise for Lauren Kung Jessen and Lunar Love Navigation Table of Contents This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Kung Jessen Reading group guide copyright © 2023 by Lauren Kung Jessen and Hachette Book Group, Inc. Cover design and illustration by Sandra Chiu Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. Forever Hachette Book Group 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104read-forever.comtwitter.com/readforeverpub First edition: January 2023 Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591. Interior design images © 2023 by Lauren Kung Jessen Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jessen, Lauren Kung, author. Title: Lunar love : a novel / Lauren Kung Jessen. Description: First edition. | New York : Forever, 2023. Identifiers: LCCN 2022037075 | ISBN 9781538710258 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781538710272 (ebook) Subjects: LCGFT: Romance fiction. | Novels. Classification: LCC PS3610.E8747 L86 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220805 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037075 ISBNs: 9781538710258 (trade paperback), 9781538710272 (ebook) E3-20221129-NF-DA-ORI For those who are also mixed and have felt like they aren’t enough or don’t belong. You are and you do. Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more. Tap here to learn more. Chapter 1 In my almost eight years of matchmaking, there’s one thing I know to be true: love is like the moon. Case in point: love moves in phases. New love is a barely there whisper in the night sky, a slow burn into brightness. The relationship matures in the first quarter, advancing into full illumination—two compatible people becoming whole. The immediate passion wanes but doesn’t disappear. Instead, the initial flash evolves into a steady glow. Like the moon, love is dependable. You don’t have to see the moon or love to know they’re there. Both the moon and love are romantic and enchanting, can be moody and mysterious, possess dark sides, and have gravitational pulls on us that we just can’t control, no matter how hard we try. The moon was formed when a large object collided into Earth, a happenstance so cataclysmically devastating that produced something so beautiful. When two people collide, there’s the possibility that love will be created. There’s also the potential for us and everything we’ve ever known to be thrown out of orbit. As a matchmaker at Lunar Love, my family’s Chinese zodiac matchmaking business, it’s my duty to keep clients and their relationships rotating on their axes and revolving in orbit. I make thoughtful and personalized matches based on people’s compatible animal sign traits. My years of hard work have paid off because I’ll officially be in charge of Lunar Love in just a few hours. By the end of today, its legacy will be my responsibility. I’ve dedicated myself to my craft, so one day, I can be half as good as Pó Po, who has grown Lunar Love through the decades. Expectations to make matches is one thing, but when you’re the granddaughter of Lunar Love’s famously successful matriarch, whose match rate for Chinese zodiac matchmaking is near-perfect, expectations reach truly celestial heights. I park in my usual spot in the public parking garage a couple of blocks from Lunar Love and weave through early-bird tourists on the hunt for breakfast in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. In the eight-minute walk from my car to Lucky Monkey Bakery, I watch vendors roll their boxes of vegetables and fruits on hand trucks and bump against early morning shoppers eager to beat the crowds. Burnt orange lanterns are strung between colorful pagoda-style shops, dotting the light blue, cloud-speckled sky. Vivid murals recount Chinese legends, the colorful mosaics popping against the dulled brick. An incoming call from my mom glows on my phone screen. Before I can say hello, a voice at the other end frantically speaks. “Where are you? Never mind. I need you to make a quick stop!” “I’m grabbing a late breakfast at Lucky Monkey,” I say, quickening my pace. “Oh, perfect! I need you to pick up extra buns.” The stress in Mom’s voice practically makes my cellphone vibrate. “Don’t you think the cake I made will be enough? Plus all the pastries Dad made?” I ask, sidestepping a man carrying a tub of fish. “Lucky Monkey’s been open for a couple of hours already so I don’t know how much will be left.” “Pó Po wants cocktail buns for her birthday breakfast. Just choose an assortment of