Late Night Bookstore 3: Soulmate

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.

A traveling scholar is intent on translating a Buddhist sutra that is said to have power over the creatures of the afterlife. He slowly finds himself entangled in a mysterious plot involving witchcraft, demons, and a battle to preserve his own soul from the attacks of the supernatural underworld.

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

During the Late Tang Dynasty, a manor is invaded by a demon cat and a sense of unrest befalls the capital of Changan. A poet is charged with investigating the case and meets up with a monk. The two work together and pull apart the thread of clues to reveal a history of truths leading to the events.

In 1950s Mexico City, William Lee, an American ex-pat in his late forties, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

The Tang emperor is betrayed by one of his generals, who installs himself as emperor in the East Capital. The son of one of his slave workers escapes to the Shaolin Temple, learns kung fu, and sets out to kill the traitor who killed his father.

After a young man is murdered, his spirit stays behind to warn his lover of impending danger, with the help of a reluctant psychic.

A fateful night in 1959, four people die when the bus they are riding crashes. They continue as ghosts; their souls become eternally entwined to the life of a child born at the moment of their deaths as his guardians. Baby Thomas grows up to be a businessman who has memories of his playmates, but assumes they are products of his youthful imagination. When the ghosts realize they need Thomas' help to move on to the afterlife, they decide to make an appearance once more.

Cheng, a young man who is set up by the chief of police, must leave the life he knows and Qiu, the woman he loves, to start again. After escaping prison Cheng quickly and violently moves his way up the ladder of Shanghais criminal underworld to become on the most powerful mob bosses in Shanghais history. But fame and notoriety take their toll when Cheng finds himself stuck between the looming Japanese army and the scheming local secret service. Matters are only made worse when he bumps into the love of his life QIU, along with her writer husband. Will love re-kindle in the dusk of an era?

An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.

In an alternate universe where twinned worlds have opposite gravities, a young man battles interplanetary prejudice and the laws of physics in his quest to reunite with the long-lost girl of his dreams in this visually stunning romantic adventure that poses the question: what if love was stronger than gravity?