All Stories Are Love Stories: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of March 2016: Beautiful in its language and soul-touching in its characters, All Stories Are Love Stories opens with a statement to the reader that very-near-future San Francisco will be hit by a catastrophic earthquake in less than eight hours, and a firestorm will sweep the city shortly afterward. This ticking clock--and the fore-shocks that rattle the main characters every few chapters--keep nerves taut even as Elizabeth Percer gently unearths the backgrounds of baker Vashti, her long-ago boyfriend and only love Max, and geology expert Gene (who, quite unfortunately, just torpedoed a coworker s desire for a public announcement predicting an earthquake because Gene didn t find the data credible enough). Each is a transplant to San Francisco, and each has baggage that Elizabeth Percer opens up and carefully explores. When the quake hits mid-book, the crisis gives Max and Vashiti another chance to rebuild their broken love, and offers Gene a shot at redemption as he staggers through the burning city to save his MS-afflicted husband. While the love stories of the three characters form the heart and lungs of the book, the characters conflicted passion for fragile and vibrant San Francisco is the pulse, always beating in the background even as buildings crumble. Complex yet simple, just like real love, this novel will open up your heart and make you long for a trip to San Francisco. Adrian Liang