The Seekers of Deer Creek: an enchanting mystery wrapped within a family drama

Thao Thai

TWO SISTERS. ONE PAINTING. A LONG-LOST SECRET.

From the bestselling author of Banyan Moon comes a captivating, evocative story of two estranged sisters on a quest to find a painting by a forgotten Vietnamese artist that holds the truth of their family's fractured past.

'Beautiful . . . a kind of ghost story wound through with artistic passion, a legacy of violence, and the indelible intimacy of sisterhood' Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

'The most achingly beautiful novel I've read in a long time' Amy Jo Burns, author of Wait For Me


Aside from the fact they are sisters, Vivi and Calla Nguyn have little in common.

Vivi, the eldest, lives an orderly and predictable life. Working as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, she carefully preserves pieces of the past, all the while refusing to examine her own dark history.

Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. An accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic, she is charming and intriguing to everyone she meets. She's also a recovering addict, constantly causing Vivi to worry.

Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father's death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter found in their father's belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Surrealist Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art that Calla is convinced is meant for her and Vivi to find together. Intrigued yet reluctant to follow her capricious sister, Vivi must decide whether she's willing to face or shut the door to the past.

From the ghostly Wisconsin woods to a glittering estate in the French countryside to a disintegrating ancestral home teetering on the edge of a ravine in Vit Nam, The Seekers of Deer Creek is a story of sisters, art, and the irresistible gravity of the past-how it endures across time and generations, always present even when buried.