Living through messy family drama? ❌ Reading about messy family drama? ✅ One thing about us here at THP: we could never get tired of dysfunctional families! Justinian Huang’s new novel, Lucky Seed, takes family politics and drama to another level.
Lucky Seed stars the Sun Clan, a wealthy family living in Los Angeles known for its billion-dollar company, Sunfang Global. But when the role of company president and sole inheritor to the Sunfang trust requires a male heir by blood, there is nothing this family won’t do to secure their future.
With the soapiness of Succession and a diverse cast like Crazy Rich Asians, we may have found our latest book obsession. Here are (lucky number) three reasons why Lucky Seed is a must-read!
Book Overview: Lucky Seed
Content warnings: parent deaths, murder and attempted murder, attempted suicide, mentions of drug addiction and use, rape, sexism, homophobia, hospitalization, pregnancies, car accident, graphic sex, some violence (Read at your discretion!)
Summary: The billionaire Sun Clan of Greater Los Angeles is your typical American family, with power-struggling aunties, emasculated uncles, scheming cousins, scandalous secrets and a fortune teller on retainer. But at the end of each combative day, the Suns are chained together with golden handcuffs, whether they like it or not.
Yet strange storms are a-brewing. Their matriarch, Roses Sun, is grappling with an existential crisis: she must produce a male heir that bears the clan’s surname. She fears that if her generation is the one in which their esteemed lineage ends, they will be punished as “hungry ghosts” in the afterlife—an ancient but very real Asian superstition.
Faced with this terrifying fate, Roses summons her favorite nephew, Wayward. Believing him to possess the “lucky seed,” Roses presents Wayward with a mandatory suggestion: to father a baby boy who will inherit everything. When the other members of the Sun Clan catch wind of Roses’s plot, all hells break loose. Wayward’s family will now clash like never before in an epic war over the future of the Suns…if there is a future at all.
Yet through the chaos, Wayward sees opportunity. What if he can leverage all the conflict into a solution for his problematic family? What if he can reunite the Sun Clan by healing them? And what if the tumultuous Suns can finally learn how to love each other for the first time?
Crazy Family Dynamics
Imagine the most dysfunctional family and multiply it tenfold. That’s how chaotic and scandalous the Sun Clan in Lucky Seed is. Starting from the way the late Big Boss Sun grew his company at the expense of other people, one of which was his close friend and business partner. Then we get to his children and their strained relationships caused by betrayal, blackmail, and constantly butting heads: Roses, Iris, George, and Hyacinth. The next generation of Suns (April, Wayward, Isaac, Felicia, and Lola) mostly tolerate or ignore one another, though some of their resentment has been brewing in recent years. Now with a multi-billion dollar trust on the line, everyone vies for their shot at producing a son who will ultimately inherit it.
It Keeps You Guessing
We were somehow able to predict a few of the plot twists in Lucky Seed (not to brag or anything). But the secrets and surprises never seem to end with the Sun Clan. Like what does a murder investigation in Hong Kong have to do with Roses’s fortune teller? Or who gains the most from spying on the Sun Clan and planning their demise? Some of the shady dealings between family members and secret conversations we become privy to are so unexpected. Yet they are all interconnected to the main drama: and that’s how each of the Sun cousins finds a way to inherit the family fortune. We especially love getting the added perspective of the family dog, Houyi, who is ultimately a hero in his own right.
The Cathartic Ending
Whew, we had to take a few breaks reading through the ending of Lucky Seed because the consecutive big reveals kept wailing on us. We fast forward through each of the respective pregnancies (we won’t spoil who to keep the element of surprise). In a much-anticipated family reunion at a baby shower, everyone’s secrets and schemes come to light. Characters we once rooted for turn into the villains of the story. Long-missing relatives show their hand in manipulating the Sun Clan. We were so scared for the fate of a few characters. But suffice it to say that everyone gets the ending they deserve. Slowly but surely, most of the siblings’ relationships and parent-child relationships are on the mend. And the future of the Sun family is as bright as ever.
In this twisty and dramatic contemporary novel, Lucky Seed by Justinian Huang follows one wealthy family’s path to securing the family fortune. Filled with dark plots, betrayals, and surprise reveals, it’s become our latest book obsession!
Lucky Seed by Justinian Huang comes out November 11th, and you can order a copy of it here!
What do you think of Justinian Huang’s new novel? Do you plan on reading Lucky Seed? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
Want to hear some of our audiobook recommendations? Here’s the latest!
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JUSTINIAN HUANG:
INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | WEBSITE
