Set against a high-society Shanghai wedding, a heartfelt, funny, dazzling novel about a reluctant bride and her two best friends, each with their own motives and fed up with the way society treats women, who forge a plan to steal all the gift money on the big day.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Sophie Wan’s Women of Good Fortune, which is available from March 5th 2024.
Lulu has always been taught that money is the ticket to a good life. So, when Shanghai’s most eligible bachelor surprises her with a proposal, the only acceptable answer is yes, even if the voice inside her head is saying no. His family’s fortune would solve all her parents’ financial woes, but Lulu isn’t in love or ready for marriage.
The only people she can confide in are her two best friends: career-minded Rina, who is tired of being passed over for promotion as her biological clock ticks away; and Jane, a sharp-tongued, luxury-chasing housewife desperate to divorce her husband and trade up. Each of them desires something different: freedom, time, beauty. None of them can get it without money.
Lulu’s wedding is their golden opportunity. The social event of the season, it means more than enough cash gifts to transform the women’s lives. To steal the money on the big day, all they’ll need is a trustworthy crew and a brilliant plan. But as the plot grows increasingly complicated and relationships are caught in the cross fire, the women are forced to face that having it all might come at a steep price…
9 months to the wedding
JANE IS HAGGLING with a woman on WeChat over a Burberry trench when Zihao comes home bearing three giant plastic bags of blue crabs.
“I’m home,” he announces, even though Jane has informed him several times that she can always hear his footsteps clomping down the hallway.
Jane grunts in response, focused on the current argument between her and MianHua888. Lulu’s wedding updates have made Jane moody. It should be her planning a posh wedding, indulged by a fiancé who eats meals with multiple forks.
It’s not jealousy, she tells herself. Just indigestion. And this trench coat is the cure.
MianHua888: Xiao Meimei, no offense, but it makes sense for us to split evenly for a purchase like this
Jane sneers. Such blatant disrespect for some random girl with a snotty attitude to call her little sister.
WoDeTian: you requested the trench for the first few months, which means October through December. Of course you’ll get more value out of it during the winter, so you should pay the amount according to that
MianHua888: if you’re going to be such a stickler, why don’t you just take your money and go to zara?
Jane gives a squawk of indignation and tosses her phone on the cheap secondhand table Zihao drove across Shanghai to pick up. It skids over the worn wood and stops when it hits the plastic bags he set down. “Woˇ de tiaˉn ah!” she exclaims, staring at the writhing bags. “What is all this?”
“There was a deal. Thirty crabs for a very good price.” Zihao beams at her as he loosens his tie and leans his briefcase against the leg of their dining table. His dark hair is ruffled, and despite how early he headed out to work this morning, he’s in annoyingly high spirits. To Zihao, a good deal is sweeter than candy.
Jane puts her palms on the table, trying to stay calm. “You realize only two of us live in this apartment?” she asks. “Also, is this the same market that gave us food poisoning last time you fell for one of their deals?”
“That was just once,” Zihao says dismissively. “I’ve bought pork and beef from there before, and we didn’t have problems.”
“I told you not to buy anything from there anymore! They have no cleanliness standards.”
“Just throw them all in the steamer and cook out the poisons. Besides, we should take a break from eating meat. Can you believe the price of beef per pound has gone up three yuan?” He slides her phone back to her. “What are you so absorbed with, anyway?”
“Nothing you’d care about.” She grabs the phone, but even thinking about the message from MianHua888 ticks her off. For her sanity, she should leave this WeChat group altogether.
But no. If she leaves, the group moderators won’t let her back in when she inevitably sees a post from some beautiful influencer like Cici Xiang and is reminded of everything she doesn’t have. This has already happened with two other luxury crowdshare groups. And it’s not like Zihao will give her the money to pay full price.
Plus she would have to say goodbye to ever getting her hands on the Chelsea trench. She tried it on at the store in Jing’an and spent a good half hour admiring how the honey color paired with her black sweater. The style totally slimmed her waist, an effect she usually only gets from editing the shit out of herself on Meitu. Unless she splits the cost with these other Burberry zealots, she’ll never get the chance to wear one.
“Are you buying clothes again?” It’s just Zihao’s unique skill to make her feel like shopping is some kind of cardinal sin. She glares at where he leans against the counter. “Do you do anything else?” he asks, exasperated.
At that, she snatches the crabs off the table and marches to the kitchen counter, where she releases them into the sink, their claws clacking against the edges as they scramble.
“I cleaned the house and saved Lulu from the heinous mistake of ordering polyester bridesmaid dresses. I researched footbaths because your mother has been bugging us for one. I watched dramas about rich men who let their wives go on shopping sprees with their credit cards and wished they were about me. So yes, I do.” There’s no point in playing happy family. Not when Zihao looks down on everything she does.
Jane takes one of the squirming crabs and slams it down on the cutting board before picking up a sharp knife and stabbing it neatly in its ganglia. She imagines the crab with Zihao’s face on it.
“Your fictional men might have unlimited money, but I don’t,” Zihao says, terse, watching her cautiously as she handles the knife.
“They don’t just exist in fiction,” Jane mutters as she hacks off a crab claw, thinking of Harv and the giant room he’d booked for Lulu’s proposal, where the roast duck came with its own birth certificate.
There’s a sigh, then Zihao says, “I’m going to finish up some work.” He retreats. Good.
Jane seethes as she hoists the giant wok her mom bought her as a wedding gift. The thing usually requires two people to wield, and every time she cooks with it, she recalls what her mom said when she delivered it. He’s not going to stay for your face, so make sure you keep him with your cooking.
Getting Zihao to agree to be Jane’s husband is probably her mother’s greatest accomplishment. The daughter she’d always scorned as ugly and unlovable, finally bargained away. Jane’s parents had given her the apartment in Shanghai with the understanding that it would make her a more attractive prospect, and Zihao’s parents had been ecstatic their son would acquire joint ownership of an asset otherwise far outside of their modest means. What happened was the best possible outcome for both families, while Jane and Zihao are left acting out the rest of this miserable play.
Once the crabs are steamed and there’s a mountain of dishes in the sink for Jane to hand-wash because Zihao insists the dishwasher wastes water, they sit for dinner.
“Looks delicious,” Zihao says as she sets down the crab crackers and gingery soy sauce. He’s changed out of his suit into a neon running shirt that makes Jane’s eyes hurt. She tried to donate it once, but he saw it in the collection pile and lectured her about donating clothes that don’t have any visible defects.
She takes her own seat across from him. He’s trying to establish a truce, but Jane isn’t ready for one. “I should charge you for it.”
Zihao chuckles, cracking open a leg and deftly extracting the entire length of meat from inside. “It’s not worth that much.”
Because housework can’t possibly compare to the high and mighty work of climbing the corporate ladder.
“Can you believe we’ve been married for almost half a year?” Zihao asks. “Before we know it, it’ll be our anniversary.”
“Six months? How?” It already feels like forever.
In between chewing, he asks, “Do you want to plan something? For our anniversary, I mean.”
No, she doesn’t want to plan something, in addition to all the chores she already does. “What I want is access to your bank account.”
“Sure.” He reaches for more crab.
Jane’s eyebrows go up. In their half a year of marriage, she’s never asked so directly for money. Is it possible that sort of directness got through his thick head?
“Really?” she asks.
But he’s not finished. “If you let me see everything you’re spending it on.”
Of course. Jane stares stonily at Zihao.
“Isn’t it fair? It’s money I’m earning. I want to see where it’s going. And you would share that information with me, unless there’s something you’re ashamed of.”
“It’s not about shame. It’s about privacy. Although given your line of work, I guess you don’t care about that.”
Zihao actually looks hurt by this. “I didn’t want to work in surveillance. I did it for the money.”
“That makes it sound a lot better.” Jane pushes away from the table. “You clean up. I feel a stomachache coming on.”
“For the last time, there’s nothing wrong with that wet market!”
Jane stomps into their room. If she had married someone more generous, someone who felt lucky to be with her and wasn’t a total miser, she wouldn’t have to waste her days bickering with online strangers.
It’s her own fault. A prettier and younger woman would have the power to divorce him. She’s thought about it often, but it’s not like she can change her appearance with the snap of a finger or turn back time.
Jane flops onto their bed, smashing a pillow over her face. Like they always do when it’s dark and quiet, all the cruel things people have said about her resurface.
Mama, she’s ugly. Was she born like that? a little boy had asked and pointed at her when she was thirteen. She’s avoided playgrounds ever since.
You could be the most successful and intelligent woman in the world, but if you aren’t pretty, it doesn’t matter. Her mom, when rejections to Jane’s matchmaking profile poured in from other families, and Jane was naive enough to go to her for comfort.
I don’t really care if she isn’t pretty. I just need somewhere to live. She’ll do. The words she overheard Zihao say to her parents when they met to finalize the marriage agreement. Her own damn husband.
The insults are lodged in her ribs like tiny daggers, buried too deep to extract.
She can’t continue like this, letting one unhappy anniversary roll into the next. If she had more desirable looks, she could divorce Zihao and find someone who appreciates her. They might not understand her love of shopping, the control it gives her, the sense of worth wearing beautiful clothes provides, but they wouldn’t judge her for it. Once again, Jane returns to the solution. The one that is clear as day, if only she had the money for it.
Plastic surgery.
Excerpted from Women of Good Fortune by Sophie Wan. Copyright © 2024 by Sophie Wan. Published by HTP.
