What is Counterfeit about?
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
“A con artist story, a pop-feminist caper, a fashionable romp . . . Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read—but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority. . . . Chen is up to something innovative and subversive here.\" — Camille Perri, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Recommended by New York Times Book Review •Entertainment Weekly • USA Today • Time • Today show •Vogue • Good Housekeeping • New York Post • Town & Country • GMA.com • Buzzfeed • Goodreads •and more!
For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, this thrilling con artist story follows two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise—an incisive and glittering blend of luxury fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.
Money can’t buy happiness… but it can buy a decent fake.
Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. But in this riveting crime thriller, beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.
Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business—someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened in this high-stakes tale of female friendship and betrayal, and Winnie vanishes