Adam & Evie's matchmaking tour A novel

Nguyen's heart-fluttering debut follows poet Evie Lang to Vietnam, where she finds adventure and whirlwind romance. Evie's eccentric late aunt wills her niece her breathtaking California mansion under one condition--she must participate in the Love Yêu matchmaking tour in Vietnam and give real love a chance. Though Evie is unenthusiastic at first, she changes her mind when her cheesy "Ralph-Fiennes-wannabe" boyfriend betrays her and she loses her teaching job; besides, the getaway could be just the thing to get her out of her yearlong writing rut. The last thing she expects is to meet "Vietnamese Adonis" Adam Quyền, the brooding and irresistible CMO of Love Yêu. Adam is bitter from dealing with his own disastrous love life when stunning Evie literally stops him in his tracks. Though their connection feels like magic, they both resist it--after all, Evie has her life waiting for her in San Francisco, and Adam is weighed down by his family's expectations that he uphold their reputation and company. Nguyen effortlessly guides readers through Evie and Adam's exhilarating romance, striking a perfect balance between tender moments and sparky banter. Romance lovers and armchair travelers alike are sure to be sucked in. Agent: Abby Walters, CAA. (Sept.)

The chief marketing officer of Love Yêu, a Vietnamese tourism-plus-matchmaking service, is drawn to an Asian American poet on a luxury road trip. When Evie Lang's beloved bohemian Auntie Hảo leaves her a house in San Francisco on the condition that she go on a matchmaking trip in her late father's birth country, the recently single and jobless poet takes the plunge. Having grown up in the American Midwest with a white mother, Evie has never been to Vietnam, and her introduction to her paternal heritage has her lurching into traffic to save a rooster and being scolded by a motorbike-riding man who turns out to be the CMO of the tour she's joining. Adam Quyền is recovering from a failed relationship, working for his sister's startup, and trying to please their demanding parents. He takes a clinical approach to life, and Evie is an unexpected curveball thrown in his path. Despite their sexual and emotional chemistry, the two are grappling with insecurities both professional and familial, and their attraction wars with their financial, parental, and cultural differences. Written in third-person alternating points of view, the novel imagines how people from such different worlds and perspectives can find love and common ground. Nguyen, who writes literary fiction as Thao Thai, grounds Evie's manic-pixie traits in a sadness and self-consciousness that skirts cliche while giving the prosaic Adam chances to display his caring nature. Nguyen writes of Vietnam lovingly, avoiding exoticization by weaving details of the country's present and past (and its diaspora) into the trips Evie and Adam take together. Funny and emotional in turns, a love story set amid modestly rich Asians in modern Vietnam. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.