Lunar Love


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 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
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 First edition: January 2023
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 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
 
 
 
 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
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 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